We here at Sacred Heart Palm Desert are learning this first hand. There are many people in the world who live in remote areas and need our help when a disaster strikes. How do they get supplies? S.T.E.M. shows us how to engineer gliders to get to remote areas and help these people. S.T.E.M. stands for science, technology, engineering and math.
In S.T.E.M. we use a design process to get a solution. The first step is to ask what real world problem needs to be solved. In the Science of Flight, it was getting supplies to people in remote areas after a disaster strikes. We modeled different gliders to get the best solution we possibly could. We learned what makes a good glider. You need a fuselage, a set of wings and a horizontal stabilizer. It was up to us to decide the shape of the wings and how many we wanted and what type of stabilizer to use. We also decided what to add to the glider and how to better balance it. To balance and take flight the lift must be greater than the weight and the thrust must be greater than the drag. It was important our gliders were successful so that we could get the cargo to the people who needed it most.
In order to make our gliders successful we used the engineering process. We used the following resources: teeter-totters, iPad apps, sketches, models, hand launched propellers and our launch logs to design our gliders. If a disaster were to happen, like a flood, we would have to deliver the following: diapers, first aid, water, food, tents, clothes and protection to the people in the remote area.
Through this lesson we learned that caring for God’s creations is now our job. We learned that taking time to help others is more important than anything else we could do. This was such a great way of learning science, math, engineering and technology in a way that helps others in need.