Englewood Schools STEM Newsletter

Volume 4: April 30, 2018

District News
Bill Gilmore, District STEM Coordinator, william_gilmore@engschools.net

S&P Global Partners with Englewood

Schools to Support STEM Education
S&P Global is the world leader in data and analytics related to global economics, markets, and corporate ratings. You
may know them through the S&P 500 which is an American stock market index of the 500 largest companies listed on
the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ, but the company does much more.

S&P Global's Colorado Offices and CoRe Teams have initiated a volunteer program designed to close the STEM job
gap. Jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are going unfilled which creates challenges
for both the workforce and employers, including S&P Global

To date, S&P Global and Englewood school have partnered to bring 24 S&P corporate volunteers into the Englewood
STEM labs to act as mentors, and 17 middle school girls have visited S&P Global’s Centennial office.

Early results are very

encouraging with positive
feedback from teachers,
students, mentors and
administrators.

“I had the opportunity to

volunteer at the Englewood
High School in one of their STEM labs. It was clear that the kids were provided access to some state of the art technology
and they were happy to explain what they were working on. The variety of the projects the students had available to
select from let their creative minds flow, and it was exciting to see how the skills they were learning directly applied to
the desirable expertise in the workforce today.” – Ciara Martinez, S&P Global

“Thank you for setting up Ashley's visit today. I could tell that my young ladies felt a sense of pride that she showed such
an interest in their projects! I could tell that they were trying hard to impress her, something they don't necessarily care
about with me. It was cool to see them wanting to show off for her. ” –Scott Wallace (Englewood Middle School STEM
Teacher)

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Colorado’s Finest
High School of Choice
Sustainable Agriculture & Green Energy
Scott Wallace, Facilitator
scott_wallace@engschools.net

SAGE Apiary Successes and Failures

SAGE Bee Hives Honey Filled!
Winter is a rough time for a bee! Going outside is
certain death, even on a fairly warm winter day.
To stay warm, you sit around with all the other
bees in the hive and shiver so your muscles
produce enough heat to warm the inside of the
hive, and you do it all winter long!

To maintain that much activity throughout

the winter requires a lot of energy.
Fortunately, for bees, they work hard all
summer long to store up that energy in the
form of honey. If you are lucky enough to
have a bee hive, you can benefit from the
bees hard work by collecting a small portion of that honey. It is a delicate balance, however. If you collect
too much, the bees will not have enough food to make through the winter.

Since the three SAGE hives were in their first year, it was decided that no honey should be collected in the
fall. Unfortunately, while all hives had plenty of honey for the winter, one hive did not have enough
individual bees to maintain the proper hive temperature and all perished from the cold. The bees loss, was
the programs gain, as the hive is packed with unused honey that can now be collected and processed.

Update: One of the other hives swarmed last week, and that group of bees was collected and rehomed in
the unoccupied hive!

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Charles Hay World School
Christy Swafford, STEAM Facilitator and Coach,
christy_swafford@engschools.net

FUN WITH FORCES

Third grade students investigate how balanced and unbalanced forces enable
us to manipulate our world.

We know the world around us is full of physical objects that

swing, fall, roll, speed up and slow down, but have you ever
wondered why? We decided to test the movement of magnets
and balls to find patterns that could be used to predict motion in
future investigations.

The STEM lab was full of hands-on fun as students pulled each
other down hallways, rolled balls down ramps, and pushed
heavy objects on different surfaces. Our final investigation was
to design a maze that could be solved without moving the maze
or touching the marble. Students followed the design process to
create magnetic marble mazes for parents and teachers to solve
during conferences.

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 Clayton Elementary School
STEAM Lab
Christian Eaves, Facilitator and Coach, christian_eaves@engschools.net

After School STEAM Club

Several students recently formed an after school
STEAM Club at Clayton. This club has been put
together as an opportunity for students to explore
everything in the lab of their own accord. They are
encouraged to investigate their own interests and to
create with a purpose.

One of the first projects chosen by students was born

out of their interest in audio & video production.
Students have created their own news station with
their own videos, stories, and theme music to go
along with it. Students are using Ableton Live for
audio production and iMovie for video production.

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Bishop Elementary School
STEM Lab
Brent Valente, Facilitator and Coach, brent_valente@engschools.net

Fifth graders learn engineering is more

than just building things
Students tackle an outbreak of a new,
dangerous “virus”
Fifth grade students at Bishop have spent the spring learning
about the many different systems of the body and how they
work. In their classrooms, they have learned about
everything from the digestive system (even making their
own “poop”!) to the circulatory system. But how can this
possibly tie into their learning in STEM? Isn’t it just where
kids go to build things?

Wrong.

Using glow powder as their virus, students have learned how

biomedical engineers work with and test samples through
their creation of quarantine boxes.

When one of their boxes failed, they discovered just how fast
and chaotic the spread of a contagion can really be. To
better understand how this happens, another group of fifth
graders created their own virus models and attempted to
infect a red blood cell.

As they test, not only have they learned how interconnected

body systems are, but what steps scientists and engineers can take to stop potential outbreaks.

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Cherrelyn Elementary
Elementary STEM
Jessica Tarkanian K-6 STEM Facilitator
jessica_tarkanian@engschools.net

Students at Cherrelyn practice the engineering design process through

project-based learning

This April, all K-6 students at Cherrelyn are applying

an understanding of the engineering design process
in a new way.

Using structural engineering, mechanical

engineering, and aerospace engineering as a
platform, kids of all levels are solving problems and
creating interest-based projects in STEM.

The process includes starting with a problem,

conducting research, making a plan, creating a
prototype, testing the prototype and then making
improvements.

Students are scheduled to present these projects at

Cherrelyn’s learning showcase on May 3rd.

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Englewood High School
Design and Fabrication
Dave Trujillo, Facilitator, dave_trujillo@engschools.net

Englewood High School Takes First Place

in Engineering Design Competition
Our school’s human powered
vehicle team, comprised of
Fernando Urrutia, Terrell
Padilla, Chaice Soderstrom,
and Isabel Montanez brought
home a much University of
Colorado Denver Human
Powered Vehicle Competition,
besting the 2nd place team by
more than 60 points.

The students used Fusion 360

3D CAD software to design a
cargo bike, and then
fabricated the bicycle by
themselves. The students had
to pay close attention to
frame geometry, structural
strength, the placement of
components, as well as learning how to weld the joints of the frame. The bike completed all
performance tasks including, turning radius, stopping distance, high speed sprint, and 30 minute
endurance race, all while carrying 150 lbs of cargo without a single failure

As the year winds down the final projects in fabrication are coming together and the students are
putting together portfolios of projects for their finals in two weeks.

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Englewood High School
Robotics
Dave Trujillo, Facilitator, dave_trujillo@engschools.net

The Final Showdown!

Robotics students are in the process of building and testing new robots for the annual balloon popping battle
royale.

Each robot will be outfitted with three balloons and a student designed balloon popping mechanism. When
each balloon is popped, the robot is removed from the game.

Students will use all of the skills they’ve learned throughout the year to produce a robot, with both the
necessary offensive and defensive capabilities, to compete against their classmates’ robots in the gauntlet for
control of the battle royal trophy and championship.

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Englewood High School
STEM
Thomas Rode, Facilitator, thomas_rode@engschools.net

The STEM students at EHS have just wrapped up their engineering

unit. Students spent time exploring careers in engineering and
completing virtual job shadows to give them a deeper look into
what a career in Architectural Design, Structural Engineering and
Industrial Design might look like.

Once students finished their research they started on their projects.

Projects ranged from bridge building, home design, designing parts
for an RC car, designing a 3D trophy, and even designing and
building a catapult.

One group decided that the walls of the STEM lab need some help
so they designed a new STEM sign for the lab.

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Englewood High School
Computer Science
Thomas Rode, Facilitator

Code Quest 2018

Englewood High School AP Computer science had
the opportunity to participate in the 2018 Lockheed
Martin Code Quest Competition on the 21st of April.

Code Quest is an annual computer programming

competition where teams of High School students
each work together for 2.5 hours to solve problems
by using JAVA, Python, VB.net, C, and/or C++
programming to complete the “quest.” The problem
set consists of 15-20 challenging problems created
by Lockheed Martin engineers and computer
programmers. This was the first year that the
students had a chance to computer in this event.

Exploring Computer Science

The exploring computer science classes continue to work
on the foundational concepts of computer programming,
which unlocks the ability to make rich, interactive apps.

The class has been using JavaScript as the programming

language and an App Lab as the programming
environment to build apps. The concepts learned in these
lessons will help students better understand multiple
programming languages and tools.

AP Performance Tasks
The AP Computer Science students are putting the finishing touches on the two major performance tasks
that they must complete for the AP requirements. Students are completing the “Create” performance task
focused specifically on the creation of a computer program through the collaborative and iterative process
of programming.

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Englewood Middle School
STEM
Scott Wallace, Facilitator

Englewood Middle School Takes First Place in

CU Denver Engineering Design Competition
The middle school human
powered vehicle team
consisting of Leonora Berisa,
Brenda Berisa, Evan
Humphrey, Kevin Navarro,
Noah Miner, and Santiago
Cisneros, took first place in
the University of Colorado at
Denver School of Engineering
Human Powered Vehicle
Competition.

The middle school division

required entrants to design
and construct a vehicle that
could attach to the back of a
bicycle and carry a load of 50
lbs.

Each of these Advanced STEM students worked as a pair to come up with an initial design, competing to
become the final design. However, in the true spirit of collaboration, this group decided to take the best of
each of their three designs and combine them to create their winning design! The group planned the final
design in TinkerCAD and then learned how to use tools such as the metal band saw, grinding wheels, drills,
ratchets, circular saw, and various other tools to construct the finished product. The group would like to
thank Mr. Trujillo for completing the welding required to implement their design

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Colorado’s Finest
High School of Choice
Digital Audio Production
Alex Kravitz, Facilitator

CFHSC students Explore Post Production

​

Colorado’s Finest Digital Audio Production students are starting their first foray into post production.
The young audio engineers are adding sound effects to videos to enhance the storytelling using
sound.

Their production should put the audience in a specific place using background sounds. Then, sound
effects are added for comedic or dramatic effect. When completed, there will be a class film festival
showcasing their work.

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 Colorado’s Finest
High School of Choice
STEM
Dan Marlow, Facilitator

STEM Spells a Variety of Opportunities

Last session STEM students worked on a wide variety of projects predicated on real world applications.

Several students did a great

job of using the design process
to build, test, modify and
improve a ball launcher to test
the concept of a parabolic arc.

Students also created and

edited YouTube videos that
connected to
entrepreneurship
opportunities.

Other students used different

Geographic Information
Systems platforms such as
Google Earth and ArcGIS to
work on a variety of cool
projects including , analyzing
areas for natural disasters and
collecting data in order to
locate the best place for a new
restaurant in Denver.

In general STEM, students have been 3D modeling objects and printing them, analyzing structural strengths in
building, exploring the different camera settings for photography, and creating instructional videos.

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