University of Houston students design potential SEED STEM activities!
For Students, By Students!
For the last two and a half months SEED has been working with students from the University of Houston’s Bauer School of Business to host a design challenge for a new SEED STEM activity idea. We invited two groups of 7 students to take on the task of designing and building two new SEED activities ideas that SEED could possibly use one day (no promises though!). The students that took on this project did so as part of the course work at the university and they were all truly excited to get the chance to contribute to the world wide SEED community. Many of the students involved with the project grew up in countries where SEED has many connected schools, such as India, Brazil, and Bolivia. In fact, The University of Houston has the 2nd most diverse student population in the United States, making it the perfect partner for SEED!
Each group was given an introduction to what SEED does, what a SEED activity is, what should be included, and guidance on writing lesson plans for the activity. After a couple of months of mentoring by SEED Staff, visits to the SEEDLab in Sugar Land, and several emails, the groups were ready to present their ideas.
On April 5, 2013, the two groups presented their final versions of their ideas in front of SEED Staff, SEED Volunteers, and University of Houston professors. Both groups did an amazing job of capturing the true nature of SEED activities - Hands on Learning!
Group 1 created what they called the “Schlummer”, a solar power car made completely of recycled card board and powered by two solar panels.
Group 2 created an activity that explored the properties of electromagnetic current in order to create a flashlight.
These ideas open SEED up to new and fresh ideas, and who knows, one day these University of Houston activities might just make the cut to become a permanent member of the SEED activities family! I guess only the future will tell!
If you had the chance to design a SEEDKIT, what would you make it about?