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Implementing VEX GO STEM Labs

STEM Labs are designed to be the online teacher’s manual for VEX GO. Like a printed teacher’s manual, the teacher-facing content of the STEM Labs provides all of the resources, materials, and information needed to be able to plan, teach, and assess with VEX GO. The Lab Image Slideshows are the student-facing companion to this material. For more detailed information about how to implement a STEM Lab in your classroom, see the Implementing VEX GO STEM Labs article.

Goals and Standards

Goals

Students will apply

  • How to use Build Instructions to create a specific model.
  • How to write a description to describe observations and observed changes.

Students will make meaning of

  • How organisms change and interact with the environment over their life cycles, and how scientists and others can explain these changes in writing.

Students will be skilled at

  • Following Build Instructions to create a representation of a tadpole and a tadpole with back legs.
  • Naming and identifying pins, connectors, and standoffs and using them to connect beams and plates.
  • Identifying and describing the differences between each phase of the frog’s life cycle.

Students will know

  • Organisms change over their lives and interact with their environment in different ways.
  • Scientists use writing and descriptions to help explain and describe their observations to others.

Objective(s)

Objective

  1. Students will use and apply build instructions to construct a model of a tadpole and a tadpole with back legs.
  2. Students will identify and describe the physical changes within the frog’s life cycle within its natural habitat.

Activity

  1. During the Play Parts 1 and 2, students will read and follow the Build Instructions in order to create representative models in a specific way.
  2. During Play Parts 1 and 2, and during the Share portion, students will be create a Field Journal, in which they will photograph, identify, and describe in writing  observations about that phase of the frog’s life cycle.

Assessment

  1. Students will photograph their completed models, which should match the image in the instructions, to demonstrate their ability to use and apply Build Instructions to their actions.
  2. Students’ completed Field Journals will show a written identification and description of their observations and ideas about the changes that take place in each phase of the frog’s life cycle.

Connections to Standards