Supporting Youth Interactions in STEM Exploration

He let's them choose what shape they want to make the boat into, and decide how they think it is going to work best for them. He also asks them how they think this experience is going to work step by step. Which is awesome!

Jason asks open ended questions allowing the youth to think about the direction they want to go with building their boats.  He lets them come up with the shape of the boats on their own.  Never saying whether the youth are right or wrong but simply asking questions allowing them to strengthen their critical thinking skills.  For example, Jason asks one of the partners why they made the sides of the boat so tall and the student explained his reasoning and Jason simply walked away allowing them to continue on with the project.  Jason also let them test the experiement of putting the boat in the water and counting the marbles being place in the boat all by themselves.

Jason was having control of the group by guiding them to respect and remain quiet while some of the participants were doing their presentation.

Jason walks around the room giving the kids their independent space while leading them with positive interactions. He's asking questions to reassure their understanding of the experiment. He let's them decide what shape or mold their boats will be while also giving them the opportunity to test it out before the final conclusion.

Jason walks around the room giving the kids their independent space while leading them with positive interactions. He's asking questions to reassure their understanding of the experiment. He let's them decide what shape or mold their boats will be while also giving them the opportunity to test it out before the final conclusion.

Jason supports giving youth control during his lesson by first having one of them recite the agreements they decided upon when doing their STEM activity,.

Do we get to place the marble into the boats ourselve? Can we rebuild it? How is the shape going to work for us?

They ask him how the shape of the boats will be and if they are able to put the marbles in themselves. 

The youth ask Jason if they can shape their boats however they please. As well as ask if they can do a trial and error.

One of the students ask Jason if they will be the ones putting the marbles into their boats.

Can we put our own marbles in our boats?
they also asked if they could build their own shape for their boats.

All the groups seem to work at seperate tables and then when they are ready to test their finished products they move to an outdoors location. Which makes it better because you wouldn't see a boat indoors.

Jason breaks the students up into groups of 2 to work across from each other at tables.  When outside, he helps the students set the rules of respecting others as they try out their boats and staying seated until it's their turn. 

Jason groups the students into pairs indoors to brainstorm. They independently work side by side using the tables as their surface area. The actual experiment is conducted outside, leaving room for splashes and fun.

He maximizes his space by using the classroom for building their boats and brainstorming and then uses a space outside to conduct the actual experiment.

Jason groups the students into small groups to brain storm their ideas on how to build their boats.Once outside he explains to the class that they will be all together while watching each group go up and present their boats.

The facilitator seems to ask them more questions about what is going to happen next and have them answer it and make them do all of the thinking, rather than vise versa. Which is putting them to work and they don't even realize it. The youth are being the builders, creators, artists and testers. They seem to be wearing all of the hats in this activity but in a good way.

Jason's role as the facilitator allows the youth to engage with partners and stay focused on the task at hand.  He encourages their critial thinking by simply asking questions to allow them to think outside of the box at times.  When they ask how the shape of the boats should be he takes time out to have the youth speak on what they already know about boats in order to brainstorm how theirs could look.  The youth's roles throughout the activity include being leaders at times, engineers as they draw out and build their boats, collaborators, coordinators and observers in the audience at the end when they put their creations to the test.

He's prepared and has a clear lesson plan.
Students are allowed to make their own designs.  The instructor clear guidelines that are fun and has the student be responsible for accountability.

Jason ensures the students ideas by asking them open ended questions. He's consistently reassuring positivity within the group. The students brainstorm out loud while working united with their own understanding of the prompt.

Jason plays the role of the the educator and plays that part well by encouraging collaboration between the students. He asks the students questions about their models and helps the students by encouraging their work. The youth play the roles of the deisgners, engineers, and testers. The students are the ones that are doing most of the work, but that's not a bad thing because then, in my opinion, they get more involved in the activity.

The group of students designed a boat with foil paper. The adult leader help them to test the boat to see if the goal was accomplished. The goal was that the boat was to be able to float and have a load of some type, and it still had to remain floating. The students were able to share and work together to designed the boat. The project involved participation/collaboration from the students and of course guidance from the instructor.

Jason explained to the kids what they were going to be doing. After he walked around and observed what the kids were doing,asking them questions.He let them design their own shapes of the boats.