An interview with Amy Jo Clemens, Ed.D., NIU Assistant Vice President of Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development and Director of the Center for P-20 Engagement

In the fall of 2022, the Illinois MTSS Network (IL MTSS-N) moved to NIU. In fact, it’s housed right here with us in the P-20 Center in the NIU Division of Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development.

NIU STEAM has a lot in common with the IL MTSS Network! We share a commitment to addressing the whole child and supporting students equitable and effectively. We’re excited to explore that common ground with educators at our 2024 STEAMing It Up Conference: Using MTSS to Support Students in Literacy and STEAM.

To find out more about how MTSS can help all of us be more effective educators, we returned to this interview with Amy Jo Clemens, NIU assistant vice president for Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development and director of the NIU Center for P-20 Engagement. As a former high school science teacher, principal and superintendent, Amy Jo has seen MTSS in action and is a passionate advocate for using MTSS to improve learning outcomes and equity. 

We sat down with Amy Jo to ask her a little bit about why she’s excited about using MTSS in schools.

Why do you love MTSS?
It’s the most powerful way for schools to take all their resources and align them to support students equitably, efficiently and effectively. It’s proactive and preventative, so we aren’t waiting until students fall way behind – we’re looking at data to anticipate students’ needs and support them to success. MTSS helps schools work smarter, not harder, by building systems that monitor and intervene early with interventions tailored to the student’s particular problem. 

How does MTSS use a systems approach to equitably address the needs of every student?
With MTSS, you create a system that monitors the performance of individual students and then intervenes early. System-level strategies ensure that all students are monitored and all students have access to interventions that they need. In MTSS we identify a student falling behind and go through a problem-solving process to address the issue. Is it poor attendance, missing instruction due to frequent moves, additional time needed to master new skills, or that they haven’t mastered foundational skills they need to move forward? MTSS helps schools build a system that finds students just starting to fall behind so staff can intervene early with supports tailored to the students’ needs. This is key in an equity-based system.

Can you give an example of how that works in practice? 

I can give you an example from my own life! When I was in first grade, I was in speech classes “down the hall” and ended up missing the class time when my teacher taught subtraction. I was very confused and ashamed that I couldn’t subtract when the rest of my class seemed to act like it was easy! My dad realized I hadn’t learned it, and over Thanksgiving break – I remember this vividly – he sat me down, laid out table knives on the dining room table at my grandmother’s house, and taught me subtraction. That was the little bit of support I needed to get back on track. Without that “intervention” (i.e. increased time and smaller group instruction) I might have gone on to greater math deficiencies! MTSS helps schools build systems that do this for all students.  

MTSS is a three-tiered system. Can you say more about how the three tiers work? 

The goal is that schools create a system where 80 percent of the students should be getting all they need from their classroom (tier one). In tier one, you have social emotional learning, trauma informed classrooms, as well as academic content and interventions provided to students by their general education teacher in their classroom. The school goal is to then have about 15-17 percent of the students on tier two, where they get a little extra help, maybe an hour a day, in an area where they’re struggling. Only about 3-5 percent of the students can be on tier three, getting regular individualized interventions tailored for their needs. In a well-designed system of supports, every student gets what they need, which is what makes it equitable for all.


MTSS Evidence-Based Practices

MTSS is evidence-based. Proven interventions work to provide real solutions that you can implement at a system level. We encourage you to explore the IL MTSS-N website to learn more about many different evidence-based practices!

At the core of MTSS is data-based decision making.

We use multiple measures of data to:

  • Maximize student academic, behavioral and social emotional outcomes.
  • Identify gaps between expected outcomes and current student performance.
  • Anticipate patterns of student performance across diverse groups.
  • Make informed decisions that support continuous improvement.

Here are a few of our favorite data-based decision making resources available on the Illinois MTSS website.

  • Critical Data Systems to Have in Place
    As an assessment system is developed, data must be collected that informs teams about the whole child. This includes data sources related to behavior, social emotional learning and academics. Check out this resource to learn more about assessments required within an MTSS framework.
  • Problem-Solving Using the ICEL/RIOT Matrix
    One tool that can assist schools in their quest to sample information from a broad range of sources and to investigate all likely explanations for academic or behavioral problems is the ICEL/RIOT matrix. This matrix helps schools to work efficiently to decide what relevant information to collect on academic performance and behavior—and how to best organize that information. Check out this resource to learn more about the ICEL/RIOT Matrix.

Don’t forget! Sign up for our 2024 STEAMing It Up Conference: Using MTSS to Support Students in Literacy and STEAM to learn more!

Date posted: March 20, 2024 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Educators IL MTSS Knowledge Base

By Lindsay VanGeem, STEAM Instructor

This is an exciting year for solar activity as we prepare for the world’s longest land-based total solar eclipse in over a decade! The path of the eclipse in North America will cross parts of Mexico, 15 U.S. States, and five provinces in Canada, creating a beautiful spectacle that will dazzle everyone who takes time to, safely, look up to the sky!

A solar eclipse is a rare, celestial event that occurs when the moon passes between the earth and the sun. This causes the moon to create a huge shadow that blankets part of Earth because the sun’s light is either partially or completely blocked from view. If you are in the regions where the moon will completely block the face of the sun, you are in the area known as, the path of totality. The sky will darken giving the appearance of dusk, or if conditions and your location are perfect, the appearance of night!

If you live in the United States and miss out on this year’s eclipse, you will have to wait until the next total solar eclipse to be visible in the lower 48 states, which won’t be happening until August 23rd, 2044. To ensure you don’t miss out this year, you can make your own solar eclipse viewer out of materials you can find around your home!

DIY Eclipse Pinhole Projector

How it Works!

For viewing the eclipse, a pinhole projector is a device that creates a light projection of the sun and the moon’s shadow onto the inside of the box through a focused beam of light. The tiny hole that the light will shine through acts as a small camera lens. The light enters through the small hole, it gets focused and projected to the other side of the box so that you can see the image!

Materials

  • Thin cardboard box (like a cereal box)
  • Masking or clear tape
  • Scissors
  • Permanent marker
  • Foil
  • Toothpick
  • Construction paper, stickers, markers (Optional)

Steps

  1. Using a permanent marker, draw 2 small squares, about 1-2 inches in size, on one end of the box. One square should be on the top left-side of the box, the other square should be on the right-side of the box top.
  2. Cut out both marked squares on your box top.
  3. Next, cut a piece of foil that will be large enough to cover one of the square holes that you previously cut out and tape the foil over the top.
  4. After you secure the foil over one of your squares, use the toothpick to poke one small hole for the sun to shine through.
  5. Decorate the outside of your box to help celebrate the eclipse!

How to use your viewer:

To use your pinhole viewer to observe the eclipse, stand with your back to the sun and hold up your pinhole viewer so that it catches the sun’s light. During the partial phases of the solar eclipse, you should see a projected image of a crescent sun inside your box. During the height of the eclipse you might be lucky enough to see the annularity, or the maximum phase of the eclipse when the moon’s entire disk is silhouetted!

SAFETY NOTE

It is not safe to look directly at the sun without proper protection. Viewing the sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or telescopes without the proper filters and eye protection will cause severe eye injury.

Date posted: March 18, 2024 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Activity Community Educators Space

Jessica Winn, NIU STEAM Educator

There’s an age-old saying, “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.” Storms in the spring are intense! In this episode of Winning Ideas, let’s better understand where tornados come from, how they are classified and what to do when you hear the siren sound.

Are you the standard Midwesterner – the tornado siren sounds, and you RUN, not to your basement as they recommend, but to your garage to get a better look at the storm? You might be saying to your family something to the tone of, “Whoa – look at those dark clouds!” or “Did you see that lightning strike? That was a good one!” Or you’ve got your phone out recording the storm as it traipses by your house. Well, not me! I am not originally from the Midwest so when the sky threatens to eat you – I take cover!

Here in the Midwest, we are fortunate that tornado sirens are tested regularly, and we learn what that sound means. But sometimes tornados can strike before a warning can go out. If you are at home or on vacation where sirens might not be around, it’s important to be aware of the weather, especially in months when tornados are common, like spring. When it comes to the signs mother nature gives, there are four clear warnings on when to seek shelter. First, look at the clouds during a thunderstorm. Tornado clouds will often be very dark or appear purple or green in the sky before a strike. Second, clouds may feel like they are sitting lower than normal, or they appear very close. Third, hail is a common side effect of tornados as the weather is mixing warm and cold causing a difference in temperatures from ground to sky. Finally, you may hear a very loud sound, like a freight train barreling towards you at a rapid rate. If any of these things are happening – seek shelter, you are likely in the path of an oncoming tornado.

Some of you may be asking, why are tornados so much more common in the spring than in any other season? Also, how are they classified? According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tornados form when temperatures on land and in the sky are drastically different. For a tornado to form there needs to be warm, wet air closer to the ground and drier, colder air in the sky. Those two things alone don’t start the tornado, but they are the key ingredients to create an unstable atmosphere. When you add in the wind, the weather is primed for a tornado. The warm air tries to rise while the cool air tries to settle, when you add in wind as a factor, you can start to see rotations of the drafts (the warm air going up and the cold air coming down), potentially forming a tornado funnel. NOAA states that tornados are, “violently rotating columns of air, extending from a thunderstorm, which are in contact with the ground.”

When it comes to classifications of tornadoes, the United States uses the Fujita Scale. The Fujita Scale (EF Scale) is a way for scientists to measure severe storms and how much damage we predict they will cause. Tornados are ranked from EF 0 to EF 10. Most tornados we see are considered weak tornadoes (EF 0 – EF 3). They have wind speeds up to 100 mph and last only a few seconds. There are occasionally strong tornadoes (EF 4 – EF 7), which have wind speeds up to 200 mph and can last a few seconds to a minute. Finally, there are super rare tornadoes that are classified as violent tornadoes (EF 8 – EF 10). These happen very infrequently but cause the most amount of damage. They can have wind speeds up to 300 mph and last anywhere from a few seconds to minutes on end. Fortunately, violent, and even strong, tornadoes are not common. But, even if the tornado is considered a weak one, it’s still important to seek shelter. Basements are frequently suggested shelters because they are enclosed and typically have few windows. When a tornado becomes more violent, the shaking and blowing can cause windows to shatter and flying glass is always a problem. The goal is to find a safe place as close to the Earth as possible. Have water, snacks and batteries/external chargers ready to go in case an emergency strikes your home or school.

While we are imparting the importance of staying safe, it’s also really fun to learn about tornadoes with your class! Here are some weather-related activities across the grade bands:

  • Kindergarten – 3rd grade: mimic a tornado with your students with a “Tornado in a Jar” activity; talk about what it means to be prepared for a tornado in their homes and work together to create a suggested list of things they would like to have if a tornado hits.
  • 4th – 8th grade: Talk to your students about what creates the weather, then have them do a mini forecasting lesson. When they have grasped the idea, have them create their own weather forecast/broadcast video that explains a weather phenomenon. You can also have them research and create a poster on how to predict a tornado.
  • High School: In a physics, environmental, or biology class, you can have them do a movie comparison. Have them answer the following questions as they prepare a presentation: How real are the storms in movies? Select a famous movie that has a storm (Twister, Wizard of Oz, etc.) and mathematically/based on physics decide how realistic those movies are – what classification is the main storm in the movie; what is the wind speed expected? How long would they be? Finally, should we expect something like that to happen as the climate changes? Have them create a presentation about their findings.

No matter what grade you are in school or how old you are, tornados will continue to be a fact of life for Midwesterners, how you react to them and prepare is up to you! Just know – we always want you to be safe and healthy! Check the weather often, know where and how to take cover, and be ready for whatever mother nature has to offer.

Don’t forget to share your projects with us! Tag #NIUSTEAM and @NIUSTEAM for a chance to be featured in our weekly newsletter. And as always, do good things, be good people, and make yourself better than the day before.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, April 3). Staying safe in a Tornado. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/tornadosafety/index.html

Kirk, P. (2014). The tornado and storm research organisation (Torro). TORRO. https://www.torro.org.uk/research/tornadoes/tscale#:~:text=Tornadoes%20of%20strength%20T0%2C%20T1,T10%2C%20T11%20are%20violent%20tornadoes.

Tornadoes | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. (2013, August 1). https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/weather-atmosphere/tornadoes.

Date posted: March 15, 2024 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Community Educators Nature Science Weather

A compost tour with Curator of the NIU Pick Museum of Anthropology Jessica Cima

Spring is here, and our gardens are waking up. NIU’s Edible Campus program is raising funds to build a composter, and here at NIU STEAM we’re planning a new sustainability careers summer camp.

That’s why this seemed like a great time to learn about the science behind compost and the basics of getting started! To learn more, we turned to Jessica Cima, the curator of NIU’s Pick Museum of Anthropology and an avid home gardener. Jessica recently presented at one of our STEM Cafés about gardening, preserving food and sustainable food systems. She and her family grow and preserve much of their own food – and the family’s three-bin composter is a central part of the garden.

Composting is a family activity for the Cimas. The Cima family shared some photos with us to show what a compost system can look like, and what compost looks like at each stage. Check it out!

To learn more about the science of composting and get resources for starting your own composting system, check out our interview with NIU Sustainability Coordinator Dr. Courtney Gallaher

The Cimas use a three-bin composter plus leaf bin. In this photo Jessica is adding leaves to the leaf bin. The leaf bin holds extra dry (also known as “brown”) material that the gardeners can use when needed to balance out the materials in bins 1, 2 and 3.
Here, Jessica adds food scraps to bin 1. With a three-bin compost system, the food and yard waste are first placed in bin 1, then rotated to bin 2. The Cima family has a year-long composting cycle, so the compost spends several months in bin 1 before being rotated to bin 2.
This is bin 1 of the three-bin compost system. Food and yard waste goes first into this bin, where the compost sits for several months before being turned into bin 2.
This photo shows bin 2, the middle stage of the composting process. The compost is rotated into bin 2 after several months in bin 1.
This photo shows bin 3, where the compost goes through its final breakdown into nutrient rich soil. You’ll notice that the leaves and food waste have broken down to the point where they’re no longer visible in the compost.
Gibson Cima uses a shovel to scoop the compost out of bin 2 and into bin 3.
Gibson shows off the gorgeous black compost in bin 3. After a full year going through all three bins, this compost is now ready to spread on top of the garden beds!
This photo shows the leaves piled up in the family’s separate leaf bin. Leaves provide the “brown” high carbon dead plant matter that balances out the “green” high nitrogen food scraps in compost. A good balance leads to healthy compost!

This spring, NIU’s Edible Campus program is raising funds to build a similar three-bay composter system in the NIU Anderson Hall Market Garden. Learn more about this project and find out how to support Edible Campus.

Take a look at our interview with NIU Sustainability Coordinator Dr. Courtney Gallaher to learn more about the science behind compost and find links to resources.

An interview with Courtney Gallaher, Ph.D., NIU Sustainability Coordinator and Associate Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmosphere and the Environment

Spring is here, and our gardens are waking up. NIU’s Edible Campus program is raising funds to build a composter, and here at NIU STEAM we’re planning a new sustainability careers summer camp.

That’s why this seemed like a great time to learn about the science behind compost and the basics of getting started! We interviewed soil scientist and sustainability expert Dr. Courtney Gallaher to learn more.

Don’t worry if this sounds a little intimidating! You don’t have to be an expert to start your own garden compost. “Composting and gardening should be fun activities,” Dr. Gallaher says. “The best way to learn is to just start.”

Composting can be fun for the whole family! Dr. Gallaher’s children harvested potatoes grown in big containers of compost.

Why is it good to compost?
There are a lot of reasons to compost! From the perspective of environmental sustainability, it offers a positive alternative for what to do with your food scraps.

One of the biggest problems with putting your food in a trash can is that it goes into a landfill. In the landfill, it goes through anaerobic digestion and releases methane into the air, which is one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

If we compost our food, it goes through aerobic digestion instead. Aerobic means the microbes have oxygen to breathe in, so they produce carbon dioxide instead of methane. Carbon Dioxide is a way less potent greenhouse gas, plus the carbon dioxide gets taken up by your plants when they grow, so the process ends up being carbon neutral.

Your compost also turns into nutrients you can put back into the soil. It makes a really rich fertilizer that you can put into your gardens.

As a side note for our elementary audience, what are some other things that produce methane? Are cow farts one of them?
Yes, they are! Actually, the microbes in everyone’s guts produce methane that is released through burps and farts, but ruminant animals like cows produce much more because of their diets and the microbes that live in their digestive tracts. Cows have lots of special microbes in their rumens, called methogens, that are good at digesting plant materials that other animals can’t use. The cows absorb the nutrients, and the microbes release methane gas as a byproduct. So cow farts are full of methane, and so are cow burps!

You mentioned that compost is a nutrient-rich fertilizer. What are some of the nutrients in compost, and why are they important?
For humans, when we talk about nutrition, a lot of people are familiar with the three macro nutrients: carbohydrates, fats and proteins.For plants, the macro nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Those are the main minerals without which a plant will die.There are also all sorts of micronutrients that plants need, just like humans have to get other vitamins and minerals.

Compost tends to be high in micronutrients, and also high in nitrogen. So it’s feeding your plants really well by cycling that nutrition from your food or yard waste back into the soil.

How can people get started composting at home?

I’ve worked on composting systems all over the world, and they can be as fancy or as simple as you want them to be. They can literally just be piles of yard waste and food scraps! As you pile stuff up, the bacteria will start to break it down and it will eventually decompose.

There are things you can do to take care of it more intensively that will produce higher quality compost in a faster period of time, though.

One common system is a three-bin compost system where you’ll put your food scraps and your plant waste into one side – let’s say the left side of the three-bin system. Then every few days you turn it, and about after a couple weeks you might move it to the middle bin, and then keep adding into that first bin. Then you rotate through, so that after about 45 to 60 days, by the time you get the third bin, you have nicely composted materials. In colder climates, like northern Illinois, this process may take longer. (Check out our guest blog with Jessica Cima, the curator of the NIU’s Pick Museum of Anthropology and an avid home gardener, to see how the Cima family has set up their three-bin compost system.)

One popular method of gardening is called lasagna gardening, where you just create a raised bed layer by layer. On the bottom you put a layer of cardboard over your grass and then you just layer food scraps and grass clippings and leaves a couple of feet high, and then you plant right into that and it just composts underneath your plants. The years I’ve done that I’ve had bumper crops in my vegetable gardens.

How long does it take scraps to turn into compost?

How long something takes to break down depends on the weather (temperature and moisture) and how finely chopped up it was in the first place. I tend to be a fairly lazy composter in my home environment, so if I’m cutting up vegetable scraps in my kitchen, for example, I don’t dice them up to put into my garden compost. I just dump the whole thing in there. Sometimes, if we haven’t gotten to a melon on our counter and it starts to rot, the whole melon goes in. It takes a little longer, but it does break down.

My mother’s a very fastidious composter! So everything gets finally chopped and her compost is much prettier than my compost. But both still work just fine.

What are some other ways to care for your compost?

You can pay attention to the composition of what you’re putting in there. Bacteria need a specific ratio of carbon to nitrogen to do their best job composting.

Food scraps, grass clippings, green things – all that tends to be quite high in nitrogen. High carbon things tend to be brown leaves, leaves that you’re raking up at the end of fall, or weeds that you pulled out of your garden or whatever scraps you clean up from your garden.

So if your compost isn’t acting the way you want it to – if it smells bad or it’s too wet – you can add more of one type or more of another, and tweak the composition. If you alternate layers – food scraps, plant clippings, food scraps, plant clippings – that just kind of naturally takes care of it.

Even though composting has a lot of chemistry to it, you don’t need to be a chemist to compost! You can just tweak it as you go along.

What’s OK to put in compost, and what isn’t?

As far as food scraps that are acceptable to put into home compost: fruits, vegetables, plant scraps, coffee grounds, eggshells, those sorts of things are fine.

You’re often advised not to put dairy products or meat products into your compost only because they can attract animals. It’s not that they’re not compostable. They are definitely compostable. But in a home environment, experts often advise you not to put them in, whereas with municipal composting systems, everything goes in. But again, I’m kind of a lazy composter, so like, if dairy’s been mixed into a meal, it just goes in the compost.

I hear that compost has to get up to a certain temperature. How hot does it get and why is that important?
It doesn’t actually have to get up to any specific temperature – it just does! Because when the bacteria are doing their jobs, they’re releasing energy, and the energy creates heat. How hot it gets really depends on how attentive you are to your compost and therefore how active are the bacteria in the compost.

It also depends on how big your compost pile is. Big municipal compost piles might get up to about 170 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas your home composting pile might get up to 120 or 130 degrees.

What else is important to make sure your compost is healthy?
Aerating your compost is important because that’s giving oxygen to the bacteria. Aerating just means turning the compost to give it more air, whether you have a barrel, a pile or a three-bin system.

What options are there for people who don’t have room for a composter in their yard?

For people who can’t compost at home, a lot of cities now have composting programs and they’re able to use that in their city parks or gardens, or they sell the compost to customers. In DeKalb, residents can add food scraps to their yard waste bins during collection season.

Another option is vermiculture – worm composting that can be done indoors in a bin.

Worms! Tell us more about worms, please.

Worms are amazing. I was terrified of worms as a child, but I’ve come to appreciate their role in the garden.

In most healthy compost systems, you’ll find some worms that have found their way in because it’s nutrient rich, and the worms have to eat that organic matter as their food source. Then they’ll concentrate it and poop it out as worm castings – and those are super dense little doses of fertilizer.

Worms also help to aerate the soil, to turn it and provide oxygen. And they also create these tiny channels that water can run through. So that again helps to water your compost system or allow water to drain into your garden soil and to move nutrients around.

Vermicomposting is a really fun science project to do with kids and a very effective way of home composting. You can even do it inside in the winter.

What’s happening on NIU’s campus with composting?

NIU’s Edible Campus has a vermiculture system set up, and they’re also raising funds March 20-21 to build a three-bay composter. So those two types of composting will be happening, providing a significant portion of the compost needed for the NIU Edible Campus gardens.

Then long term, one of the things that we’re trying to set up is a food waste composting system for all of campus dining. NIU produces about 700 pounds of food waste per day. And that’s mostly the food out of campus dining that people didn’t finish on their plates – because campus dining’s already doing a good job trying to avoid food waste in the back of house.

Likely for logistical reasons, so we’re not transporting a lot of food waste across campus, they would go into an electric biodigester system. These systems are aerobic (there’s that word again!), so they use oxygen, they’re thermophilic, meaning that they get really hot. The electric compost system is designed so that the food waste passes through it in about two days instead of 60 days.

What else should we know about food waste and compost?

About 40% of food produced in the US is wasted. Some of it is wasted, of course, on the production side. Sometimes it’s left in farm fields. It’s wasted in grocery stores because produce they don’t sell gets put in a landfill. But there is just an astronomical amount of food waste coming out of households, and even people who try to be careful still have food waste. So composting is a really sustainable option for disposing of food waste.

I love compost and I love talking about compost because I have two degrees in soil science. I think soil is everything – it literally allows us to live!

But you don’t have to know anything about soil or anything about gardening to be a successful composter. You just have to try it, and the system can be as precise or as messy as you want it to! Eventually the food will all break down.


Lesson for All Ages: Make a Worm Composting Bin

Making and feeding a worm composting bin is a great activity for pre-school through grade 12. Check out this activity from kidsgardening.org for detailed instructions and materials list. It’s also great to try at home!


Resources for Composting at Home

Here are a few of Dr. Gallaher’s favorite resources to help you compost at home or learn more about the science behind composting.

  • The Rodale Institute: Why Compost – The Rodale Institute is one of the founding research institutes of modern organic farming. Check out their website for more details on why and how to compost.
  • The Rodale Institute: Backyard Composting Basics – When Dr. Gallaher interned with the Rodale Institute after college, she was helping farmers in Senegal set up composting systems. But the institute also offers instructions for how to compost right in your own backyard.
  • U of I Extension: How to Begin Composting Webinar – The University of Illinois extension is a great resource for gardening, composting and soil health right here in Illinois! Check out their website for instructions and webinar recordings.
  • Scientific American: How Food Waste Turns into Huge Amounts of Greenhouse Gases – By following specific foods through their entire life cycle, researchers have determined just how much wasted food adds to emissions through phases such as harvest, transportation and disposal. Check out this article from Scientific American to learn more.

If you found all this compost science as fascinating as we did, check out our new sustainability careers summer camp for high school students!

by Becky Griffith, STEAM Educator

Have you ever wanted to liven up your windows by adding your own stained glass decorations? Let’s look at a fun, safe and assessible way to add some color to your windows. We will use school glue, tissue paper, wax paper, and a few other art supplies to make planets to hang in your window and resembles stained glass.

Before we get messy, let’s look at what glue is made of. Glue is like a magical, viscous liquid that helps things stick together. School glue is often made from something called polyvinyl acetate; this is what makes the glue stick together. Imagine glue as a chain of people holding hands. When we put glue on something, like a piece of paper or tissue paper, the people spread out and grab onto the surface. Then, as the glue dries, the people hold on tight and keep everything stuck together! This happens because the water in the glue evaporates, which means it disappears into the air. As the water goes away, the glue molecules hold onto each other and onto the paper and tissue paper pieces even tighter.

This makes glue an excellent material to help make our stained glass. To understand this process, we must look at the opacity of our materials. Tissue paper is transparent, allowing some light to pass through. When school glue is wet, it appears opaque and white, but as it dries, it transforms into a transparent adhesive that allows light to pass through. This transparency is essential for creating the stained glass effect, as it allows the vibrant colors of the tissue paper to shine through.

Pairs Nicely With:

Look Up with Me: Neil deGrasse Tyson: A Life Among the Stars, by Jennifer Berne

Grades K – 3

Materials:

  • Wax paper
  • Tissue paper in a variety of xolors
  • School glue
  • Scissors
  • Permanent maker
  • Paintbrush
  • Variety of circular lids to trace
  • Clear tape

Activity:

  1. Place a sheet of wax paper on a flat surface.
  2. Using a circular lid, trace a circle with a permanent marker.
  3. Flip the wax paper to the other side. This will make sure that no dye from the permanent marker will mix with our stained glass.
  4. Make a blob of glue in the center of your circle. This should be a generous amount and be able to cover the entire circle.
  5. Spread the school glue out using a paint brush. It is ok to go outside of the outline, we will trim the edges down later.
  6. Tear up pieces of tissue paper. Try only using two to three colors per planet. Pieces of tissue can be in strips or in chunks.
  7. Place your pieces of tissue on top of the glue. It is ok to go outside of the outline, we will trim the edges down later.
  8. For results similar to the picture, only add one to two layers of tissue paper. Remember, the more layers you add, the opaquer the planets will be.
  9. Add another blob of glue on top of your tissue paper.
  10. Using the paintbrush, spread the glue so all of the tissue is covered and saturated with glue.
  11. Let the glue and tissue paper dry overnight.
  12. After the stained glass is dry, use scissors to cut around the circles to make your planets.
  13. Separate the wax paper from the dried glue with your fingers.
  14. Your planets are ready! Hang them in any window using clear tape.

Becky Griffith is a licensed K -12 art educator and has taught video game design camps and workshops with NIU Outreach for the past decade. 

Date posted: February 27, 2024 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Art Community Creativity Educators Planets Space

By Jasmine Carey, NIU STEAM Educator

At a very young age I developed a passion for creating and building. My creations ranged from drawings to stories with illustrations and even practical things. For example, when I was younger, I used LEGOSs to build a video game case holder to store my video games because the one in the store was too expensive. As I got older, I knew that as an adult I would need to get a job someday. I also knew that I never wanted to be the adult that came home every day looking tired from their boring job. At that time, I did not know that I could use my creativity and passion for building to as a way to earn a living. Then one day, my high school architectural drafting teacher, Mr. Stapleton, taught me what I enjoyed had a name, engineering. 

Mr. Stapleton challenged me beyond my limits at times and I am so thankful to have had a teacher like him. After high school I continued to pursue my interest in Computer Aided Design (CAD) which led me to NIU where I earned an undergraduate degree in Industrial Management and Technology. Throughout my undergraduate studies, I worked with NIU STEAM where I led STEAM Saturday classes for elementary school aged girls in a program called STEM Divas. I also instructed at STEAM summer camps ranging from grades 6-12. It was here at NIU STEAM where I got my first experience of what STEM education was. It was not 4-5 separate disciplines jammed into one activity, but it was a gateway into using real-world investigation to develop contributing members of society who are problem solvers and critical thinkers.  

After completing my undergraduate studies, I returned to NIU to pursue my masters in Instructional Technology. That’s where I learned to implement technology in the classroom as a tool. While in graduate school, I continued to work with NIU STEAM where I gained the experience I needed to develop my skill and character as an educator. After graduating with my masters, I taught STEM at an elementary school in Rockford for 4 years. There I had an incredible leader who helped me integrate my informal style of teaching into a more traditional setting. I created a makerspace style enrichment class for students to enjoy every day. I was able to collaborate with teachers in my building, they would teach the foundations of their lesson and I would use my STEM class to help them understand on a deeper level through application of what they’d learned in their classroom. This set-up proved to be the most successful for students. In my class, students received hands-on learning and the freedom to be creative.  

Now, 4 years later, I have returned to NIU STEAM where my love for STEAM originated. It is here at NIU STEAM where I found a passion for STEAM education through engineering. Today I am a STEAM instructor with the Barb City STEAM Team after school program. Here I get to utilize all the skills I developed along the way I teach courses involving 3D designing, laser cutting, 3D printing, robotics, coding, and much more. My love of engineering did not lead me to your typical engineering career, but it did lead me to a much more fitting career path for me. My path showed me mentorship, grace, encouragement, and support. My path taught me how to listen, how to adapt, and how to be the best version of myself. My path showed me how important it is to follow your passion and that it is possible to create your own path. My path made me an engineer but my love for engineering made me an educator. 

Date posted: February 22, 2024 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Camps - Engineering Community Educators

Activities to bring laughter, build relationships – and help your heart

By Jess Winn, NIU STEAM Educator

(Families and Pre-K-12 educators)

In this episode of Winning Ideas, secrets to healthy, happy relationships and hearts. Check out this blog for a little of the science behind heart health – including the importance of laughter and fun. Then keep reading for tips you can use with your family or students to create laughter and build positive relationships.

A note on the age-range of these activities: Although having a dance party or a Nerf war might come more naturally with younger children, don’t hesitate to try these relationship builders with middle and high school students, as well! Scary as it sounds, middle and high school students are at the stage of development where they are exploring the idea of emotions. They are opening their hearts and experiencing new things and we think that’s a good thing! It’s important to keep modeling and promoting healthy relationships for older youth, too.

**

Ah love – the heart beats faster, the blood rushes to our cheeks, and we lose all ability to communicate. All our friends convince us that we should ask that special person out, that they TOTALLY like us too. Our palms get sweaty, knees weak, arms…wait a second – that wasn’t love, that was nerves and stress! Those two responses are fine in small doses, like walking by your crush, but over long periods of time can become detrimental to our heart health. So, what is love? How does our heart respond? What is another way (besides the traditional diet and exercise) to keep our hearts healthy? And what can we do today to start improving not only our heart health, but our connections with our kids and students? Let’s jump in!

Science has long looked at heart health through the lens of better diet and exercise, in fact that is the “ultimate cure” according to many doctors when you go in for your annual checkups. But there is an old adage that says, “laughter is the best medicine.” Where did that even come from, and is it real? Well, it has roots as far back as biblical times. More recently (the 1300s) Henri de Mondeville, a French surgeon, taught the importance of laughter in the healing processes after surgery. It has been looked at by many medical professionals through the years and the science is clear. Laughter helps improve your mental health, your overall stress, and ultimately – it helps your heart.

Science tells us that laughter releases endorphins, those happy carefree feelings. Those endorphins have a special job in your body – lower cortisol and epinephrine (the stress hormones), relax your blood vessels (allowing blood to flow easier and your heart to work less), and help improve your immune system. (Read more in this 2023 article.) So what – we should just laugh and all of our problems will disappear? NO! Nothing is a quick fix, but being surrounded by people who truly make you laugh and smile can improve your health over the course of your life. So, let’s take some time to be that person for our students and our own children – the person who helps them laugh and smile even in tough times.

If you have ever watched social media videos from circa 2020 you may have seen a series in which a father, upon the mention of “dadosaur,” morphs into a human dinosaur who rampages his house. (Check out the dadosaur Instagram feed here.) While his wife doesn’t sound the most enthusiastic, his daughters scream in laughter at each silly antic. That laughter is setting his daughters up for healthier hearts, building bonds, and teaching the girls about the importance of developing a unit of people who will support you and laugh with you.

Demonstrating for the young people in your life – whether they’re your children or your students – a healthy happy relationship with your job and the people around you helps them to develop the self -esteem to build healthy relationships with others in their future. Set your kids up for success. The laughter and connection that we build with the people we care about keeps our mental health balanced, and it also helps keep our heart healthy. It also shows love.

Remember, we asked what love is – it turns out it is a release of hormones by the brain. Different types of hormones will illicit different types of love. While students are experiencing more of a lust when they see their crush in the halls, attachment and affection that are considered to be the emotions of love. Regardless of which you are experiencing, each of these emotions are sparked when the brain is given positive feedback. Help students understand what positive feedback looks like and what to expect from the people who create those sparks of love and joy in their lives. Happy, healthy relationships build happy, healthy adults who are ready to take on any challenge life brings them.

Heart Healthy “Buds” that spark laughter, heal your heart, and bring lifelong benefits.

Try a few of these activities with your children or students or any age:

  1. After school, when you see your kiddo again, take them out for a science experiment where you go to five different fast food places and only get French fries. Then spend the next hour or so debating the pros and cons of each restaurant, as well as ranking them from best fries to worst. (This activity can be done with literally any food from shakes to burgers and more.)
  2. Begin a round of “would you rather” with something like this: “Would you rather eat a slug with every meal as an “appetizer” or sip slime juice as your drink with each meal?”
  3. Bring up a positive past memory. “Do you remember the time…” (insert a funny connection or story).
  4. Hey! Catch! (then toss them something that is hard to catch like whipped cream, glitter, etc. and start a “catch” fight).
  5. Play a game that incites silly behaviors (like Pictionary, charades, etc.).
  6. Dance! Turn on some music and just let loose in your basement with a silly dance party – crazy outfits and all.
  7. Have a Nerf war where everyone is laughing and chasing each other around the house.
  8. Make a crazy dinner! Spin a wheel of ingredients and challenge your children or students to make a meal with you out of whatever they have spun.
  9. In your classroom – take a break from the monotony of lectures, worksheets, and tests! Instead, pull a fun lesson on the meaning of (insert some silly connection to your material here) in your classroom.

This list could go on and on. But the main thing is: put down your phone, your social media, your pressure to complete lessons, and all of your other external focuses and really take time to connect with people you love and care about. Remember, even your middle and high schoolers they are still technically kids and want to experience joy and laughter with you. If you are having fun and enjoying what you are doing, it inevitably rubs off on the people around you.

Now that you’ve read this blog you might be wondering – how does this relate to STEAM? Well, we discussed the science behind a healthy heart, we developed an SEL connection, and we talked about ways to incorporate communication into your life. That, my friends, is the NIU STEAM philosophy. We aren’t just rooted in heavy science activities – we want to help build well rounded individuals who are self-aware and capable of working together towards a better future. Young people who don’t lose their curiosity spark and are willing to put themselves out there. NIU STEAM is about the whole person, not just what their brains could potentially do! So go out there, love a little, help your heart, and build a better tomorrow.

Don’t forget to share your projects with us! Tag #NIUSTEAM and @NIUSTEAM for a chance to be featured in our weekly newsletter. And as always, do good things, be good people, and make yourself better than the day before.

Contributor, B. (2023, August 24). How laughter can help your heart. BIDMC of Boston. https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/wellness-insights/heart-health/2020/09/how-laughter-can-help-your-heart

Cumston, C. G. (1903, March). Henry de Mondeville, the man and his writings: With translation of several chapters of his works. Buffalo medical journal. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8731608/

Mannella, F. (2020). Dadosaur videos and images. The Real Dadosaur. Instagram. Retrieved 2024, from https://www.instagram.com/therealdadosaur/?hl=en.

Powell, A. (2018, February 13). When love and science double date. Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/02/scientists-find-a-few-surprises-in-their-study-of-love/

Date posted: February 12, 2024 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Activity Community Creativity Health

By Stephanie Dietrich & April Startzel

Time Required: 45 MinutesMaterials Required: Key Chain Style UV Flashlights
Grade(s): K-2nd GradeSupplies:  Bioluminescence Sheet, Yellow Highlighters, and Markers

Picture books can serve as important gateways to the scientific wonders of the natural world.  A quick glimpse into any picture book on bioluminescence has students wondering if they are, in fact, reading fiction or non-fiction.  Derived from the Greek words ”bios” (life) and ”lumen” (light), bioluminescence refers to the ability of living organisms to produce their own light. This phenomenon is often referred to as a form of “living light.”

Bioluminescence is a fascinating subject that offers students a glimpse into an almost magical world lurking just beyond their reach. Many deep-sea marine animals, insects, and even some fungi can produce their own light. In Kuo’s beautifully self-illustrated book, Luminous, students are not only introduced to the magical world of bioluminescence, but light is shed on the diverse reasons why certain creatures illuminate the darkness. We learn that communication, camouflage, and hunting are just a few ways that organisms use their living light.

Using Picture Books to Explore Scientific Concepts

Using picture books to help students understand scientific concepts offers a range of benefits, including:

  • Visual Engagement: Picture books provide visual aids that engage students and make complex scientific concepts more accessible. Colorful illustrations and diagrams enhance understanding and capture students’ attention.
  • Vocabulary Development: Picture books expose students to scientific vocabulary in a way that is meaningful and easy to grasp. This helps to build a foundation for scientific language and terminology.
  • Concept Reinforcement: The combination of text and visuals helps reinforce scientific concepts, making it easier for students to comprehend and remember them.
  • Early Exposure to Science: Picture books can cultivate an early interest in science. This early exposure could positively impact the need for more diverse representation in the sciences.

Pairing scientific exploration with a picture book read aloud and a hands-on activity that illustrates the concepts is a fun way to transform the classroom into a place of curiosity and wonder.

Example of the exercise

Materials Preparation:

Before the lesson, print out the anemone coloring page on cardstock and make sure you have enough highlighters for all of your students.

Procedure:

  • Discussion
    • Show students the UV flashlight and ask them what they think it is used for.
      • Discuss how UV flashlights help humans see things that we cannot see with our eyes alone.
    • Read the book Luminous, by Julia Kuo.
      • Discuss ways in which organisms use bioluminescence.
  • Activity
    • Model the activity before walking students through the steps.
    • Each student will receive a piece of cardstock paper with an anemone coloring page printed on it and a yellow highlighter.
    • Have students add highlighters to the coloring sheet by filling in sections, outlining lines, and adding non-representation patterns (stripes, waves, dots). It may be helpful to wait to hand out markers, until after students have finished coloring with the highlighter.
    • Walk around the room with a UV flashlight and show students how the highlighter is lighting up under the UV light waves.
    • Have students add color to the remaining white spots.
      • It is okay to cover the highlighter with lighter colors, but darker colors will block out the UV light waves.
      • If students outlined shapes, advise them to color up to the line, it is ok to cover the line slightly.
    • Continue to walk around testing students’ work with the flashlight as they work.
    • Hand out keychain UV flashlights and turn off the lights in the room. Let students observe their wonderful bioluminescent creations!

Additional Resources:

Bioluminescence (nationalgeographic.org)

Bioluminescence | Smithsonian Ocean (si.edu)

Happy Reading!

Date posted: February 1, 2024 | Author: | No Comments »

Categories: Bioluminescence Lesson Picture Books Science

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