Virtual event Thursday August 13, 2020 - 2:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
Join WXXI Education and special guest Nate Ball, host of Design Squad, as we explore amazing *FREE* STEM resources available from PBS KIDS Design Squad Global.
Design Squad Educator Training with Nate Ball
Design Squad Educator Training with Nate Ball will share free engineering resources from Design Squad, including a new set of tools called Inventing Green. We’ll be exploring the importance of play, the value of inventing and tinkering, how to use STEM learning ideas in a variety of learning settings, and so much more! Plus, we'll be doing a LIVE make session with Nate. (In the confirmation email, participants will receive a list of common materials to have with them while participating!)
When: Thursday August 13, 2020 - 2:00pm - 3:30pm EDT Where: Zoom (participants will receive log-in information once registered) Who: The event is open to any educators working with 2nd through 8th graders. Educators include: classroom teachers, school support staff, after-school and out-of-school staff, librarians, homeschooling adults, etc. Participants will receive 1.5 hrs of NYS CTLE credit and a Design Squad Educator Kit with materials to do a bunch of Design Squad activities with your students. Participants must complete both the training survey and CTLE form to receive the kit and credit.
**The event is free but registration is required. *** Register here***
Questions? Contact Cara Rager at crager@wxxi.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Design Squad’s mission is to get kids excited about engineering and inventing. For years Design Squad, the award-winning PBS KIDS program and website, has created activities, videos and clubs that aim to make engineering and invention accessible and fun for kids. Now, Design Squad is tackling a new content area: inventing for a sustainable future. We want to get kids thinking about how engineering and invention impacts environmental sustainability and how new inventions can help tackle environmental problems. Design Squad Global Inventing Green is the latest addition to the Design Squad family of resources that challenges youth to brainstorm solutions that can help people with things such as lack of food, clean water, renewable energy, affordable energy, and ocean and land pollution. These resources use the same core tenants found in the other Design Squad materials such as:
- Every child should and can participate in engineering and invention.
- Engineering and invention are most meaningful when kids have the opportunity to solve real problems faced by real people.
- Failing is to be embraced as a step that all engineers and inventors take in the Design Process.
- Students should have the opportunity to lead their own learning process with guidance from an educator.
- Hands-on learning experiences based on an open-ended problem lead to more successful experiences with engineering and invention concepts.
In the Design Squad Global Inventing Green PBS LearningMedia collection, we added a new objective: help kids build an environmental sustainability mindset when inventing. Design Squad wants kids to work to solve environmental problems with invention as well as learn to bring sustainability practices to the process of inventing. This includes thinking about material choices, where an invention goes once it has outlived its usefulness, and how an invention is powered. The Design Squad Global Inventing Green collection of resources includes:
- Web videos featuring green kid engineers
- A web game called Fidgit Power
- Three green engineering challenges
- Two club guides
- Three professional development videos
Funding for this opportunity has been provided by the Lemelson Foundation.
