Last week, we kicked off Project: Create, a series of weekly STEM challenges for K-12 students across Colorado. Every Wednesday, our media partner CBS4 will be announcing the winners of the previous week’s challenge, and will kick off the new one. Stay tuned for the story later this afternoon! These virtual contests not only get K-12 students to think creatively as they dive into a new project, but also have the extra incentive of great prizes and a chance to be featured on TV! We hope that you were able to share this opportunity with students last week, and will continue to do so over the next 5 week, whether during your advisories or in a Morning Meeting.
This week’s challenge will honor Earth Day, this Wednesday, April 22. We all know that the health of our planet and its delicate ecosystems are in danger, but there has been some evidence of a silver lining in the COVID-19 pandemic. While stories of dolphins frolicking in the canals of Venice are (sadly) fake news, the mountains have certainly been more stunning lately without the veil of daily commute smog.
In the spirit of Earth Day and finding the silver lining, this week’s challenge gives students the opportunity to use an engineering design process as they celebrate the beauty in the world, even when faced with significant challenges. CU Teach Engineering (learn more about them below) will be our sponsor this week, and are offering a gift bag of CU swag as well as an engineering kit to the winners!
Just like every week, students will have two avenues to pursue this challenge:
- Design an advertisement for a product or service that can be used to improve environmental challenges AND beauty in the community. This can be in video, image for social media, or billboard format.
- Write a poem about a significant challenge, such as fear, sickness, or cruelty, but find the beauty or good that came with it. This can be submitted via a written poem or a video performance of the poem.
For full challenge details, click here.
Students can submit their entries here.
You can always visit the Project: Create website to see the latest challenge details, as well as the challenge winners!
Please continue to encourage your students to participate in this great opportunity!
More about CU Teach Engineering:
This week’s sponsor is the CU Teach Engineering program, a nationally-unique design-focused Engineering Plus (e+) pathway at CU Boulder for students interested in pursuing a middle or high school math or science teacher licensure as part of their undergraduate engineering degree. CU Teach Engineering integrates design-focused engineering curriculum, deep science or math content, education pedagogy and extensive student teaching to create uniquely qualified STEM educators. CU Teach Engineering is partnered with the Integrated Teaching and Learning (ITL) Program at the University of Colorado Boulder, which focuses on integrating hands-on engineering throughout the K-16 learning experience. The ITL Program is the lead creator of the TeachEngineering Digital Library—from which this week’s challenge was adapted—a searchable collection of over 1700 free, standards-based, hands-on engineering curricula for use by K-12 students and educators
