A Day At GIANT: STEM In the City
STEM In the City, a collaboration with STEMteachersNYC and the NYC STEM Education Network
STEMteachersNYC and the NYC STEM Education Network are coordinating a series of free indoor and outdoor in-person gatherings for K12 STEM teachers across the five boroughs, and we’re honored that they chose The GIANT Room at their first stop.
Here is a recap of our event on Saturday. If you are an educator interested in STEM programs, make sure to check out other events in this series, and reach out to us to plan a program together!
Kick Off: A Review of Recent Climate Change Report by UN
We kicked off the event with a walk through at The GIANT Room, and a vibrant discussion about our philosophy behind designing our creative hub, and GIANT approach in designing creative STEM experiences for kids. We then reviewed key takeaways from the recent UN report about climate change. In a nutshell - things are not looking good for our planet earth and we need find systematic solutions. The new report finds that climate change is not only adding to ecological threats such as wildfires, heat waves, rising sea levels, and flooding, it is also forcing out people from their homes and threatening food and water supplies. But, there is hope for change, and we can start by rethinking how we design our cities.
Ideation Time: Design Cities That Fight Climate Change
We invited educators to ideate solutions that help with climate change, with a focus on redesigining cities. To help the ideation process, educators picked “create” prompts from our ideation boxes encouraging them to rethink the way we design our homes, how might we source food in a sustainable way, how might we utilize sustainable forms of energy, or how might we help animals in danger.
Prototyping Time: Mystery Boxes and 100s of Tools at GIANT
Once our participants then picked a mystery box of materials to start their prototyping process. We gave them the design constraint to incorporate all materials in their mystery box as they work on their prototypes but also make use of other tools and machines in our studio. NYC STEM Teachers did not disappoint! They made a “therapeutic house” for birds with soothing music; a dance floor that also acts as a form of transportation, converting our bodies kinetic energy into electricity powering the car’s engine; a garbage storage system for homes that help clean the ocean; a social media movement to raise awareness about social media, and so many other amazing prototypes.
Challenge: Make it move, make it efficient, test it out, and do things with electronics and fabrication machines!
Like any other GIANT experience, we then challenged our participants to “think like a maker” and try using tools that they haven’t used before, “think like an inventor” and test out their prototype while emphasizing with the user in mind, “think like an engineer” and try to make their prototype more efficient, “think like a hacker” and think of a way to break in the system and implement their change! These are just 5 out of 10 “thinking” lenses we incorporate at our GIANT programs. We then discussed how they can bring these ways of thinkings into their own practice in classroom.
Sharing our Big Wins, Epic Fails, and Good Wonders!
At the end of the day, we all came back together to share what they’ve made and to share our big wins (a break-through creative idea or accomplishment that we’re proud of), epic fails (things we tried but didn’t work out as planned), and good wonders (things we’re curious to try in the future).
For Big Wins, our participants shared their successful builds with tool they have never tried before like a laser cut or embroidery machine, how uplifting it was for them to collaborate with other educators to come up with ideas and building them together, and how great it had felt to come back together in person as a community. For Epic Fails, we went over some of the difficulties we had while building our prototypes and looked at a number “broken” examples. And for Good Wonders, we discussed how might we bring design thinking, prototyping, and empathy and user testing into our classrooms. We finally shared a number prototypes built by GIANT Kids during our Love Your Planet and Think Like an Inventor series, all focused on helping our planet earth combat climate change.
We invite schools to join us for similar events at our hub, whether you are planning your next “team outing” for your educators, field trips for your students, or a professional development workshop focused on STEM, design thinking, and creativity. Email us demand@thegiantroom.com to plan.