NH-DI Roundup (October 2020)

Hello everyone!

Here is this month’s issue of NH-DI’s Roundup. We hope it continues to provide you with resources and inspiration! To view previous issues, head here.

2020-21 Destination Imagination Season

The 2020-21 Destination Imagination season has begun! Previews of the Team Challenges are now available. The full Technical, Scientific, Fine Arts, Service Learning and Early Learning Challenges will be released to registered teams on November 1st, and the Improv and Engineering Challenges will follow on December 1st.

To help keep everyone safe from COVID-19, all of the 2020-21 Challenges are designed to allow teams to work remotely without having to meet in person, and teams will upload videos of their Team Challenge solutions instead of presenting them live at tournaments.

Costumes!

Maybe you’re deciding what to create for a Halloween costume, or perhaps you’ve already started designing costumes for your DI team! This month, learn about how costumes can help tell a story!

Download [2.80 MB]

Thanks to NH-DI volunteer Sandra Hardy for developing this month’s workshop!

Some websites we recommend

PBS Learning Media: Bring the World to Your Classroom
New England Public Media and PBS have curated FREE, standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more! You can search by subject or grade level.

SciGirls
SciGirls, on PBS, has the bold goal of changing how millions of girls think about science, technology, engineering and math—or STEM. Each half-hour episode highlights the processes of science and engineering, following a different group of middle school girls who design, with the help of scientist mentors, their own inquiry-based investigations on a variety of topics. They also learn how rewarding and fun it is to work with their peers, and the shows’ female mentors offer girls a glimpse of exciting STEM career possibilities.

Knowitall
This site features a wide assortment of over 8,700 media assets, created by South Carolina ETV with a variety of partners for preK-12. The content has been optimized for tablets and mobile devices for one-to-one learning. On Knowitall, you will find approximately:

and the content continues to grow!

Discover Engineering
DiscoverE works to ensure people everywhere understand how engineers, technicians, and technologists make the world a better place. Their website has everything from hands-on STEM activities to at home engineering challenges.

Some STEAM activities to try

Safe Landing
Design a lander that keeps a ball safely secure when you drop it from 1 foot or higher.

Windy City Tower
Can you design and build a paper tower that can hold up in the wind?

Keep a Cube
Explore heat transfer using the engineering design process at home.

Build a Better Boomerang
Students learn the principles that govern the flight of a boomerang and apply engineering methods to improve the performance of a boomerang.

Flight Test
Planes are slowed by drag from air friction, which also reduces fuel efficiency. In this activity, students compete to design a “spoon plane” that glides down a zipline the fastest.

Build a Sorting Machine
In this activity, students use the power of gravity to design, build, and test their own method of sorting “gems” from “rocks.” Students learn how machines can be used to sort objects more quickly than humans can by hand.

From DI headquarters

Halloween STEAM Challenge: Candy Corn Cauldron
For this Challenge, students will use their creativity, engineering, and design skills to build a cauldron hanger that can hold the most candy corn.

Apple Tower STEAM Activity
For this STEAM activity, students will build a freestanding tower as tall as possible that can hold an apple at least 10 inches in the air. (Parents and educators can modify the time limit or materials based on the age of the participants.)

10 STEAM Activities For Kids (And Families!)
Over the past six few months, DI headquarters has released more than 35 new (and free!) STEAM challenges to keep kids creative and learning while they’re stuck at home. Many of these challenges can be done virtually between kids and their friends, through distance learning or homeschool, or as a family activity. They’re also great practice for teams participating in our upcoming season of Destination Imagination! Check out 10 of the most popular ones.

Share what you’ve created!

Were you inspired by any of the activities or resources in NH-DI’s Roundup? What did you build or create? We encourage you, with a parent or guardian’s help and permission, to share your creations on our Facebook or Instagram pages! (Just add your photo as a comment on our newsletter post!)

And please share NH-DI’s Roundup with your friends! Ask them to sign up for weekly emails (if they’re 13 or older), or send them a link to our main NH-DI Roundup page.

That’s all for this issue, but we look forward to sending you more soon! And as always, if you have ideas for NH-DI’s Roundup, email Emily Richardson at emily.richardson@nh-di.org.

Published by New Hampshire Innovation and Creativity Connection (NHICC), the nonprofit organization that operates New Hampshire’s Destination Imagination, Camp Gottalikachallenge, and Girls Engineering the Future programs. Learn more about us…