STEAM Workshop

Despite society’s fascination with technology, there is a general lack of curiosity regarding the basic science and engineering behind modern life. Children are naturally curious, and through our “STEAM” (Science and Engineering Essentials) workshop, we strive to accelerate their path of discovery, equip them with critical thinking tools, and introduce the basics of key scientific and engineering concepts. Good thinkers listen or read carefully and ask themselves whether what they see or hear is true and accurate. This habit of questioning and evaluating the value of any claim is called Critical Thinking. Critical thinking involves skepticism or doubt about claims made without evidence that can be validated through repeatable experimentation. In this workshop, students will learn about what science is, how scientists think in ways critique, how to apply the scientific method, and how to design a controlled experiment.

The workshop is divided into four units:

1. Science Essentials I: Scientific Thinking; the Scientific Method; Cognitive bias; Experiment design; the measure; the Probability.

2. Science Essentials II: Matter; Energy; Heat; Light; Chemistry; Evolution; The solar system and our universe.

3. Essential elements of mechanical engineering: Forces; The Mechanics of Movement; Simple Machines; Motorized Machines.

4. Mechanical Computing: Students will build mechanical computers to explore how computers work and the basics of computer engineering. They will discover how simple mechanical switches, connected to each other in intelligent ways, can do incredibly clever things and discover their analogues found in all electrical computing devices.