Student Perspectives of Learning
STEM to STREAM: Vanguard’s Approach to Learning Across Academic Domains: Volcanoes
“Elizabeth Blaetz: So it took a lot of teamwork to make a volcano. Didn’t it? Band 1 Learners: So much teamwork!”
Welcome to Vanguard Gifted Academy’s educational blog. This is our second installment of our STEM to STREAM series Vanguard’s Approach to Learning Across Academic Domains. I’m Elizabeth Blaetz, Founder and Head of School at Vanguard Gifted Academy. Today we’re going to explore volcanoes with Saanvi, Calvin and Cosette, who are presently in Band One. At Vanguard, Band One learners include kindergarten, first grade and second grade students.
EB: How are you today?
Band 1 Learners: Good! Great!
EB: Why were we learning about volcanoes?
Band 1 Learner: It was in our subject.
EB: What was the subject?
Band 1 Learner: The subject was our planet. It was also change.
EB: Change! That's right. And were we learning about fast changes or slow changes?
Band 1 Learners: Slow changes.
EB: What were some slow changes we talked about?
Band 1 Learner: Tectonic plates.
EB: And what was a fast change we talked about?
Band 1 Learners: Volcanoes.
EB: So what did we do about volcanoes?
Band 1 Learner: We built a volcano out of cardboard.
EB: How big was the volcano?
Band 1 Learner: The volcano was 10 feet high.
EB: How did we decide to make it that big? What did we use?
Band 1 Learners: We used a basketball hoop.
EB: What did we have to do first?
Band 1 Learner: We had to get the ladder, and we stepped up to see how high the hoop was.
EB: Do you remember when we made the plan? What did we decide when we were making the plan?
Band 1 Learner: We had to figure out where to cut a hole and put streamers out.
EB: What did the streamers represent?
Band 1 Learners: The lava.
EB: What else comes out of a volcano that we decided to represent?
Band 1 Learner: The bombs — ash and smoke. And confetti!
EB: Confetti represented what?
Band 1 Learners: The ash. The balls were the bombs — balls of fire.
EB: What are they made out of?
Band 1 Learners: Rocks.
EB: So we decided we wanted to make a volcano erupt. We started with a pattern and we had to cut cardboard, right? What kind of tools did you use to cut the cardboard?
Band 1 Learners: Saws, scissors, box cutters, knives.
EB: What did we have to do with the cardboard pieces?
Calvin: We had to stack cardboard up and cut them out with the right shape and tape them.
EB: We had to do all of that work to build them so that they would be 10 feet long. Then, we got our cardboard cut and we had to do what?
Band 1 Learner: We had to put the string through.
EB: We put the string through. Then what did we have to do?
Band 1 Learner: We had to sew it together.
EB: We sewed the cardboard together, and we took it outside and we hung it from the basketball hoop with the strings.
Band 1 Learners: But the strings didn’t hold. So we put sandbags to hold it down. So the volcano wouldn’t move away. And then we tried to tape it to the basketball hoop but the tape didn’t hold.
EB: So what did we use?
Band 1 Learner: The ladder.
EB: We used the ladder. But what did we use to hold the cardboard, do you remember? We decided to use the metal rings to hold it up. What kind of things did you guys do to get all of that cardboard and the sandbags all out to the basketball hoop?
Band 1 Learners: We brought carts. We brought cardboard in them and sandbags in them. One of the carts had sandbags that would fall through so we put clumps of wood down so the sandbags wouldn’t fall through.
EB: So you used tools to make you be able to do the things you needed to do, didn't you? Let’s describe what it was like on Showcase Night when the volcano erupted. What were you doing, Cosette, to make the volcano erupt?
Cosette: I turned on the leaf blower.
EB: Right. And what did the leaf blower do?
Cosette: Blowed the confetti out.
EB: What were you doing, Calvin, to make the volcano erupt?
Calvin: I was doing the lava.
EB: And how did you do that?
Calvin: The lava was the streamers, and I threw it out of the volcano’s crater.
EB: How did you get way up there to throw it out?
Calvin: The ladder!
EB: So you climbed all the way up the ladder?
Calvin: To the top!
EB: Was that scary for you?
Calvin: Never!
EB: Was that scary for you, Cosette?
Cosette: Yes, immediately scary!
EB: Saanvi, what did you do to make the volcano erupt?
Saanvi: Bombs!
EB: How did you do that?
Saanvi: We had balls and wrapped bags around so they wouldn’t roll too far. And I threw them out on the ladder because I was not scared.
EB: Good job! You went all the way up and threw them right out the top. So you guys learned about volcanoes. You decided how to make each part of the volcano erupt, and you did a super job. Saanvi, what was your favorite part of the whole job?
Saanvi: Sawing.
EB: What was yours, Calvin?
Calvin: The lava.
EB: What was yours, Cosette?
Cosette: Handing the bombs to you!
EB: I'm glad you mentioned that because that was really helpful. You handed the bombs to me because what was I busy doing? I was busy holding the ladder and making sure the kids going up the ladder were safe. And then you took the bombs and handed them to me. And I handed them to Saanvi, and Saanvi threw them out the top, didn’t she? So it took a lot of teamwork to make a volcano. Didn't it?
Band 1 Learners: So much teamwork!
I hope you’ll join us for our upcoming episode, where more children will share what they have done with STREAM. Our next blog will focus on our archaeological dig. Thank you so much for exploring our latest article about STEM and STREAM. We hope that Vanguard Gifted Academy’s educational blog will continue to be a resource for you. If you have any comments or questions about this article or any of our other blogs, please visit our website, vanguardgiftedacademy.org, to learn more, or call me at (224) 213-0087.