Innovating Your Future: 3M Young Scientist Challenge

UPDATE:
Friday, 10/06/17

Every Friday, during the Innovating Your Future call-to-action, we’re highlighting a student change-maker who is already innovating a better tomorrow for all of us. Today, we’re featuring Hannah Herbst, 2015 winner of the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge:

Check out Hannah’s Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge Entry Video

We encourage you to share Hannah’s story with your students as a way to emphasize that they, too, can start making real change today.

Join us again on Monday, for the last week of Innovating Your Future; we will introduce our final sub-question, in an effort to help your students answer our overarching research question: How can your school community reduce its environmental footprint?

We want to hear from you! If your classroom is joining us on this Innovating Your Future journey, please comment below or send us stories, solutions, and photos on Twitter and Facebook, using #YoungScientist.

Feeling inspired? Innovating Your Future is powered by the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, which is the nation’s premier science competition for grades 5-8. Join us for the LIVE announcement of our 2017 “Top Young Scientist” on October 17 at 3PM ET!

UPDATE:
Wednesday, 10/04/17

Thank you for continuing on this journey with us! As you know by now, we’re exploring how students could go paperless in their classrooms, as a means to exploring a larger, real-world question:

How can your school community reduce its environmental footprint?

See our post from Monday below, with tips for tackling this question in your classroom, in 15 minutes or less.

For a deeper dive, we’re highlighting one of our favorite classroom resources that explores the concept of one’s Ecological Footprint.

How to meaningfully dedicate one class period to this topic:

Introduction to the Ecological Footprint
In the How Big Is Your Footprint challenge, students are in charge of a business. The business wants to “go green” and reduce its carbon footprint. That’s the amount of carbon its energy use puts into the atmosphere. But it also wants to keep costs down so it doesn’t go out of business. Students must choose among different sources of energy for the production of electricity for an office building
Teacher’s Guide
Student’s Guide

Join us again on Friday, as we shine a spotlight on a student who is already making the world a better place with her incredible innovation.

Feeling inspired? Innovating Your Future is powered by the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, which is the nation’s premier science competition for grades 5-8. Learn more and urge your students to enter the 2018 Young Scientist Challenge, opening in December!

UPDATE:
Monday, 10/02/17

Happy October!

Today, the second Monday of the Innovating Your Future call-to-action, we’re introducing a new sub-question, to help you and your students break down our large, real-world question:

We challenge you to begin to answer that question by presenting the following to your students in 15-minutes or less:

Warm-up: Spotlight on Strategies (SOS) Half the Story: Video Vignette or PDF
- Introduce the SOS: Half the Story
- Show this or another relevant image: Pile of Paper Trash
Quick fix: Ideas and Details
- Think – Pair – Share
  - Think about the solutions to the question, “What impact would going paperless in your classroom have on the ecological footprint of your school?”
  - Pair up to discuss solutions with partner – Use the My Idea, My Idea Details template
  - Share ideas and details from group

Join us as we continue Innovating Your Future until Friday, October 13, with additional ways to promote inquiry-based learning in your classroom every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. [See below for a full schedule]

Join us again on Wednesday, as we share resources that would allow your class to explore this topic even further during one full class period.

UPDATE:
Friday, 9/29/17

It is very easy to become blind to innovation. We are constantly surrounded by it. It’s hard for students to see themselves as having the ability to be innovative when their points of reference are amazing technology like the phones in our pockets or the computers in our classrooms. Every Friday, as part of the Innovating Your Future weekly challenge, we’ll highlight students who are innovators; they started with just an idea and worked to bring it to life.

This week we are highlighting America’s 2016 Top Young Scientist, Maanasa Mendu.

Check out Maanasa’s Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge Entry Video

Dive in to our previous posts about Innovating Your Future (below) and start the conversation in your classroom today.

Join us again on Monday, as we introduce our second sub-question, in an effort to help your students answer our overarching research question: How can your school community reduce its environmental footprint?

UPDATE:
Wednesday, 9/27/17

We’re back!

This week, we’re exploring how students could encourage their schools to reduce their use of plastics, as a means to exploring a much larger, real-world question:

How can your school community reduce its environmental footprint?

See our full post from Monday below, with tips for tackling this question in your classroom, in 15 minutes or less.

For a deeper dive, we’ve curated some of our favorite classroom resources that highlight why plastics are so widely used and how that contributes to our ecological footprint.

How to meaningfully dedicate one class period to this topic:

Explore

Have students research plastics and what happens when you are finished using that bottle or bag
Resources from Discovery Education

Explain

Have students gather evidence to build an explanation to the guiding question: What are ways you can encourage your school to reduce their use of plastics?
Explanation Writing Guide

Join us again on Friday, as we share an example of a middle school student already innovating and bringing big ideas to life.

Feeling inspired? Innovating Your Future is powered by the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, which is the nation’s premier science competition for grades 5-8. Join us for the LIVE announcement of our 2017 “Top Young Scientist” on October 17 at 3PM ET!

Monday, 9/25/17

Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge is excited to present a weekly inquiry- and project-based learning opportunity: Innovating Your Future! Join us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next 3 weeks, as we highlight how students can tackle seemingly insurmountable real-world challenges, by answering smaller, simpler research questions in a meaningful way.

Throughout the next 3 weeks, we’ll be sharing sub-questions that tie to our overall research question, which will enable your students to tackle this challenge in a manageable way. We’ll provide suggested strategies for answering these questions in just 15-minutes: each guiding question will come with a warm-up activity, as well as a more interactive strategy that you can bring into your classroom.

Want to dedicate more time to these important topics? Each Wednesday, we’ll also provide more in-depth classroom activities or interactive learning tools that will help your students go further. And finally, we want your students to understand that young people their age can and are tackling these real-world problems every day. We’ll help you make connections to student change-makers who can serve as inspiration and models for your students to follow. Below is an outline of Innovating Your Future, so that you can plan ahead and join us each week in tackling this question.

Today, on the first day of this call-to-action, we challenge you to begin to answer that question by presenting the following to your students in 15-minutes or less:

Sub-Q%20%231-%20Innovating%20our%20Future%20(1).png

Warm-up: Spotlight on Strategies (SOS) AEIOU: Video Vignette or PDF
- Introduce the SOS: AEIOU
- Show the video: Plastic Microbeads from Exfoliating Products Cause Pollution
- Have students share out
Quick fix: 15 Minute Wellness Walk
- Pair students up
- Using the graphic organizer below, tour your school to access what is happening currently with plastics.
- After the tour, have students share their observations
- Wellness Walk Graphic Organizer

Join us again on Wednesday, as we share resources that would allow your class to explore this topic even further during one full class period.

Feeling inspired? Innovating Your Future is powered by the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, which is the nation’s premier science competition for grades 5-8.

Learn more and urge your students to enter the 2018 Young Scientist Challenge, opening in December!