Inside Prime Time's Steam Cohort: Science Experiments, The Five E's and much more.
Prime Time's STEAM cohort gathered at the Children's Services Counsel for an in-person session led by their trainer, Patricia Sasson, the STEAM Professional Development Specialist also known as the STEAM Queen.
Sasson led the 30 cohort members through a discussion of "the five E's." These "E's" stand for: engage, explore, explain, extend and evaluate.
In practice, these five ideals guide practitioners to ask purposeful open-ended questions to the youth in their programs to increase their comprehension of complex STEAM related topics.
Practitioners then had to model these "E's" using a sample situation. Sasson introduced a common STEAM activity, a boat building experiment, and had practitioners discover what questions they might use to engage, explore, explain, extend and evaluate the topic with the children in their program. These principles and the discussion the cohort had around them allow enable these OST professionals to offer high-quality STEAM learning and activities back at their programs.
The cohort members also had the chance to dawn their provided safety goggles for a thrilling experiment to send the lesson. Sasson, using the five "E's" she had previously covered, introduced the hands-on "elephant toothpaste" experiment.
She began by engaging the members using a viral video that featured the experiment before exploring the topic with them. Practitioners shared if they were familiar with the experiment and hypothesized on the end result based on the materials in front of them. Sasson explained the scientific properties that were about to be seen as a result of the experiment to her group. She encouraged them to look out for changes in temperature, color and even the matter itself when the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) degraded into water (H2O).
Following the directions small groups formed and soon the room was full of shouts of delight as their concoctions bubbled over. She then asked them to extend their knowledge and guided them to more discovery. Once everyone had completed their experiments, they evaluated the actions they had taken and noted any changes they could make for different outcomes.
The practitioners completed their post-instruction quiz before receiving a large bag full of STEAM supplies to prepare them for the final four sessions of their cohort.
To learn more about bringing STEAM to your afterschool program, click here.
A special thank you to the Children's Services Council (CSC) of
Palm Beach County, a dedicated children's funding agency, for making this work possible. Funded with local property taxes, CSC invests in programs designed to improve outcomes for children and families.
