Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Seventh- and eighth-graders at Presque Isle Middle School now know more about engineering than they ever did before … thanks to the efforts of Pam Buck.
Buck, a civil engineer with Buck Engineering, has been visiting seventh-grade math, science and social studies classes, as well as eighth-grade science classes, for the last couple of months with the goal of getting the students thinking about engineering.
“This came about as a project that I’m doing for a course I’m taking at the University of Maine at Orono,” she said. “I needed to come up with a capstone project for my degree program, and I’ve been focusing on engineering and education. I wanted to combine the two, and this was what I came up with to get the kids thinking about engineering and knowing a little about it, but also for myself to benefit from making presentations in the classroom and getting some instructional experience.”
In the math classes, Buck said she worked with the students on a volume activity.
“They built a container and tried to make it with the greatest volume,” she said. “We built it out of construction paper and then calculated the volume capacity of the container.
“In the seventh-grade science class, we did what was called a flinker activity. We made an object that didn’t sink or float, but it flinked … it hovered in the water,” said Buck, “while in social studies, where they were studying Greeks and Romans, who were some of the greatest engineers that there were, we built dome structures out of gumdrops and toothpicks and tested them to see which structure could hold the most weight by placing social studies books on them.”
Buck’s presentation to the eighth-grade students was more physics-based.
“Since physics is the science of movement,” she said, “we had a roller coaster activity so we could get some hands-on experience about kinetic energy, potential energy, gravitational forces, etc.”
The students were charged with creating a roller coaster track that was safe, but had the greatest loop diameter,” said Buck. “The goal was to let a marble go from one end of the tube to the other without falling out.”
Buck said she hoped the students got a lot out of her classroom visits.
“I hope they recognize that math and science are very important to their careers and life, and can be fun,” she said. “They don’t have to be engineers for math and science to be important, but it’s a tool that they’ll use in their lives.
“I also wanted to stress the creative problem-solving activity and teamwork,” said Buck. “I wanted them to work together to solve something that was maybe a little harder than it looks, and not to give up.”
Buck also benefited from the presentations.
“I get to interact with the students, and help become a better presenter in the classroom environment,” she said. “I also got to learn how this grade level thinks. I teach a class at Northern Maine Community College, so I like being in the classroom.”
Seventh-grader Megan Ireland said she learned a lot from the dome activity.
“I learned when you make an arch, you have to make it a certain way in order to hold something heavy,” she said. “My group was able to put five books on the gumdrop structure.
“I didn’t really know much about engineering before this, but I learned a lot from Mrs. Buck coming,” said Ireland. “It was fun.”
Students Keith Clark and Garrett DeLong also found the presentations worthwhile.
“I learned a lot about how to keep an object from floating or sinking,” Clark said. “The flinking one was really hard, but I learned from it. I also learned a lot about support as far as beams and things. I learned about how you have to build things so they’re not too heavy or won’t fall down. There’s a lot of science involved. Before this I had never given much thought to engineering, but it was fun.”
“I learned how to build stuff to support heavy objects with the tiniest things,” said DeLong. “I thought it was impossible for gumdrops and toothpicks to hold up several textbooks, but they did. I don’t think we could have done the flinking activity without team members, and she taught us how to use teamwork.”
The students also gained a better appreciation for their math and science classes.
“She said for engineering, it’s almost all about math and science,” DeLong said. “She taught us that down the road, we should pay more attention to those subjects, as well as other classes, and study and work hard.”
Clark really liked the hands-on aspect of Buck’s teaching.
“It’s easier to learn when you’re actually doing it and she’s talking about it,” he said, “than when she’s just talking about it. The more ways you learn it, the better chance you’ll remember it.”
The teachers all felt Buck’s visits were meaningful to the students.
“Kids always listen more attentively to an outside presenter than to their teachers,” said social studies teacher Kevin Sipe, “so it was nice to have an expert come. It was also nice to have a woman come in … a representation of another possibility for girls to be thinking about careers in architecture and engineering. She was a good role model for our students, and it was a good fit to what we were doing.
“She tailored her presentation to the particular class,” he said. “We were in the process of doing arches and domes, so she did a dome activity involving gumdrops and toothpicks that the students really enjoyed.”
Science teacher Cindy Cote said her students had to design an object that would flink.
“The flinker activity was a tie-in with how physical science ties in with animals’ behavioral adaptations. Fish have an air bladder, and submarines, in a sense, have an air bladder so they can sink, float or maintain in the middle. I tied it into a life science topic with Pam’s engineering topic.
“The students had to design their own object that would flink. They built, adjusted and modified it as necessary to get it to flink, which was much more challenging that what they anticipated,” she said. “They brought in some miscellaneous items from home, plus we had some things here like Styrofoam, nuts and bolts, etc. It was challenging and there was a lot of trial and error, but they got something out of it.”
Buck initially visited math teacher Judy Perkins’ class.
“After they found out what she was doing in my classroom,” said Perkins, “it spread to the other seventh-grade teachers and even the eighth-grade science classes. Math is so important … it’s all around us, and she was able to convey that to the students.”
Jay Blackstone, social studies teacher, said he appreciated having an expert in the field come in.
“It was the perfect opportunity for the kids,” said Blackstone. “We watch videos in my class all the time that feature historians who have really dug into that information and know exactly what’s going on, and Pam is one of those people. She was able to portray that information better than I could, and I think that really helped the kids.”
Buck started presenting in February and wrapped up in April.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” she said. “I’d welcome the opportunity to come back. They were a great group of kids, and I think the teachers are doing some good things with them here.”
After Buck’s visit, the students wrote thank-you notes where they reflected on how the activities related from one discipline to another.
“We’d love to see this continue,” said Perkins. “She’s awesome, an expert in what she does, and the kids really listened to her. If it works into her schedule, we’d like to do something similar again next year.”
Contributed photo
SEVENTH-GRADERS at Presque Isle Middle School participated in a flinking activity recently with Pam Buck, a civil engineer with Buck Engineering. The students had to design their own object that would flink, which means it would not float or sink, but rather maintain in the middle. Working on the activity are, from left: Chloe Rossignol, Samantha Simonds, Katherine McKenna, Caleb Hobbs and Garrett DeLong.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
AN EXCITED KATE CAMPBELL jumps for joy when a marble successfully travels the roller coaster track she and partner Jordan Mitchell created during a recent physics activity hosted by Pam Buck of Buck Engineering. Buck has been visiting seventh-grade math, science and social studies classes at Presque Isle Middle School, as well as eighth-grade science classes, for the last couple of months with the goal of getting the students thinking about engineering. Campbell and Mitchell are both eighth-graders at the school.
Contributed photo
PRESQUE ISLE MIDDLE SCHOOL seventh-graders, from left: Emma Parady, Kelsey Corriveau and Kayla Girardin test the strength of their gumdrop and toothpick dome structure by placing a textbook on it during an activity hosted by Pam Buck, a civil engineer with Buck Engineering. Buck visited the students recently with the goal of getting them thinking about engineering, while presenting the concepts in a fun, hands-on way.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
JACOB TOWLE, left, and Landon Lovely, both eighth-graders at Presque Isle Middle School, prepare to launch a marble down their roller coaster track as part of a physics activity held recently at the school with Pam Buck of Buck Engineering. The students were charged with creating a roller coaster track that was safe, but had the greatest loop diameter. Buck had been working with the students as part of a capstone project for a course she was taking at the University of Maine at Orono.
