STEM skills: Cat Alarms

A first grader explains the project and shows the finished cat alarms to his mother.

The OLS primary teachers participate in a grant program sponsored by Monsanto that focuses on teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills to their students.  As part of the program, the teachers attend regular workshops during the school year, host a science night at school, and receive equipment for their classrooms.  Recently, the first graders put their STEM skills to work on a project they called "Cat Alarms".  Their process was as follows:

• Step One:  Students listened to the story "Cat and Mouse."
• Step Two:  They discussed the problems that the mice were having with the cat that wanted to eat them.
• Step Three:  They discussed ways that the mice could engineer a device that could be put on the cat so that when the cat was very close, the mice could run and escape.
• Step Four:  Students gathered materials from home and from Mrs. Mongan's lockers that could be used to engineer such a device.  The device had to fit on a stuffed animal from home.
• Step Five:  The students worked on creating their devices in the classroom.  Many times, they had to change their plans and start over again.
• Step Six:  The students shared their engineering projects with each other and answered questions about their designs.