JAE fourth grade virtual teacher Mark Yashowitz recently met with his students outside the school to pick up materials for at-home lessons. He also had a planned, hands-on lesson ready for them to engage in. A large plastic container that served as a makeshift sea allowed students to demonstrate an at-home STEM project, Project Pirate. It encouraged a lot of creativity and ingenuity, in which the students had to create a boat with recycled materials and try to make it float.
The students excitedly tested their boats’ boundaries in the hands-on activity about buoyancy. The students used simple household and recycled materials and recorded their results on sheets during the activity, which also paid homage to the environment.
“I love how different they all looked, very creative ideas,” Mr. Yashowitz said of the engineering and design exercise that also brought the students together for the culminating project.