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Presentation Descriptions & Materials

USING ROBOTICS TO TEACH MATH AND SCIENCE CONTENT

Bill Church--Littleton High School



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   Bill Church received his BS in Physics from Binghamton University in 1992.  He received his MAT from Cornell in 1997.  He began his teaching career in Dover, NH in 1997 and currently teaches Physics, Physical Science, and Robotics in Littleton, NH.  Bill has been using engineering design challenges and technology toolsets in his physics curriculum since 1997.  His work has been supported by the Tufts Center for Engineering Educational Outreach, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Christa McAuliffe Sabbatical program, the Lemelson-MIT program, NH SAU 35 and 84, North Country Educational Services, Antioch New England's COSEED project, and the General Electric ELFUN Foundation.

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Problems, Solved with Science, Wrapped in Art!

Kevin Lavigne--Science Teacher at Hanover High School

Current courses: Honors Chemistry, Genetics & Evolution, Chemistry and Physics Problems for Seniors (C.A.P.P.S)

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The focus of this presentation will be to describe how I am using the Lego® Mindstorms robotics kits to create a project-based learning environment that fosters development of teamwork, structured programming, technical writing and technical drawing skills, as well as intuition about physical systems.  I will be providing handouts with sample challenges, advice on getting started with robotics, and a number of resources I've found useful in developing and teaching this curriculum.

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 The Connection Between Lego and Professional Robotics

Bob Crean--Advanced Animations

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Technical Education Outreach with LEGO Mindstorms

Tom and Laura Chadwick--IBM

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Tom and Laura Chadwick are both electrical engineers at IBM in Essex Junction, Vermont.  Tom works in the ASIC Design Center Engineer, where chip designs are taken from the drawing board and implemented in Silicon.  Laura is an ASIC Product Engineer, where she leads a team working on yield improvement.  They both earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Tom and Laura spend their spare time doing technical education outreach for IBM and especially enjoy using LEGO Mindstorms to get kids hooked on engineering.

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Robots That Tell Stories: Remote Data Collection With Lego Robotics

Rick Dustin-Eichler--Windsor Central Supervisory Union



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It is amazing to see a student’s eyes light up when they get to the climax of an exciting story.  Their eyes want to jump ahead as they anticipate the main character’s next move.  When I mentioned to a class of 6th graders that they could read a graph just like they read an exciting novel, they nearly laughed me out of the room.  However, through the use of Lego’s Mindstorms for Schools robotics kits and their remote sensing capabilities, these 6th graders discovered that my statement was not laughable.  In this presentation I will explain how students can use light and rotation sensors to collect and analyze data through authentic activities that mirror the missions of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers.  Through these lessons students learn that, like novels, graphs tell amazing stories that can leave you hanging off the edge of your seat.

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Do engineering design challenges improve science learning in third through fifth grades?

 Kristen Bethke Wendell—Tufts University Doctoral Candidate

Kristen received her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2003. She then earned her M.S. from MIT in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2005. Kristen is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Science Education at Tufts University. Through Kristen's research, she is exploring how LEGO engineering design challenges – modeled on real-world problems – can be used to make math and science more relevant and understandable to children and their teachers. She is specifically studying the impact of LEGO-design-based curricula on 3rd and 4th grade students’ understandings of fundamental science concepts.