Lego Bolts!

Students at The Schoolhouse formed the Junior First Lego League Team (Jr. FLL) so that they could enjoy building legos and solving problems together in a cooperative and rich learning environment. The team is the first of its kind in Vermont but it hopes to inspire other area schools to form their own teams. It is not surprising that The Schoolhouse is the first school in Vermont to have such an offering because parents are empowered to develop programs for their children and because Schoolhouse recently restructured and develop a five year vision with 21st century technology at the forefront of its mission.

I worked to restructure Schoolhouse as a Board Member and he created the team to help fulfill the vision of the school. I have taught math and science for 14 years and I hope to integrate a number of important technologies into our team. For example, the builders will learn to take digital photographs and video of one another and to document their work and discussions. Builders and their guardians will work together to learn how to use the internet to collect pictures and information to post onto the blog. Builders will also learn to use the Lego Digital Designer to construct designs digitally and in three dimensions. Finally, the builders will develop a media presentation of their work and publish it on this blog.

Jr. FLL teams form annually throughout the world to work on the same problem, which is developed by Lego in partnership with engineers from some of the most prominent firms in the world. The teams generally meet after-school and are organized by community groups such as the Boy Scouts, Four H and so on. Teams are capped at six so that each member of the team can participate actively in the project. The six students that compose the Lego Bolts are aged between 6 and 11, and represent the communities of Westford, Winooski, South Burlington and Burlington.

The Lego Bolts will meet 8 times between December 2010 and January 2011 in order to work on their design challenge, Body Forward. The students are tasked with researching a medical condition and designing a lego construction that would address the medical condition. The students then present their work at a Jr. FLL event where other teams and judges can experience their construction.