The biggest thing that is different with the Quickfires is the constraints and time limit that is imposed on the students. In many STEM Challenges, the challenges are open-ended and give students time to plan, design, re-design, and explain their creation and the process it took to getting to the end product. This is also part of a Quickfire, but due to the constraints set on the challenge as well as the time limit, you are asking students to go with their gut feeling and create something that meets the given constraints. The time limit does not always allow for a full planning, design, re-design, and explanation, but rather, what can you create under the given circumstances.
Let's say your challenge involves pipe cleaners...
- Example of a framed STEM Challenge: What can you create that represents a discipline in the Winter Olympics?
- Example of a framed Quickfire Challenge: Using 10 pipe cleaners (using no more than 3 colors, must stand independently, and incorporates three 90 degree angles), create a representation of a discipline in the Winter Olympics. Time allotted: 15 minutes.
For this Quickfire, we explained what the Olympic pictograms are and how the host country can personalize the pictograms to represent the feel of the Olympics in their own way. We used Wikki Stix and asked students to think about if the Winter Olympics were to be held in our city. How could they create a pictogram that would represent a discipline as well as our city?
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- Name of discipline
- Explanation of discipline
- Who participates in the discipline
- Where the discipline would take place in our own city