The MoeZone Challenges
At a STEM Network/Northeast Region leadership team meeting in May 2014, Moe Benda, co-chair of the leadership team, described how he wanted to develop a series of challenges featuring STEM phenomena and processes that were based upon everyday experiences living in Northeast Minnesota. The team was enthusiastic about this project as it modeled the key action identified for the first Success Marker in Strategies for Advancing STEM in Northeast Minnesota (p. 10):
Success Marker 1: Awareness of STEM and its Importance in Northeast Minnesota
Key Required Action: Show children and youth that STEM is fun and exciting and present in all aspects of daily life.
Moe developed the first MoeZone challenge in early fall 2014, and has since produced 22 more as of August 2015. He publishes new challenges, and solutions to past challenges, in the Iron Range publication Hometown Focus twice monthly. Each challenge encompasses three levels—elementary, advanced, and professional—relating to the same theme. The tiered challenges show how we experience basic STEM principles in simpler as well as more complex contexts. The professional level addresses STEM challenges relevant to life in Northeast Minnesota and its industry. Several educators have incorporated the MoeZone challenges into their curriculum. STEM professionals brainstorm with 5th – 12th grade students on how they would solve the challenges. Solutions to the challenges are published with the subsequent challenge which includes some of the submitted answers. Challenges so far have been about snowmobile trailers, bows and arrows, water quality, and firefighting, to name a few. Check out some of the challenges and see how you’d solve them!
MoeZone ©
Elementary – 4th and 5th Grade Level
Advanced – High School Level
Professional – Real World Challenges that should keep all of our minds thinking!
Challenge #1: Snowmobile Trailers 9/19/2014 and Introduction of the MoeZone!
Theme: Levers
Challenge #2: Ground Water Flow – Water you talking about? 10/3/2014
Theme: Hydraulic Conductivity
Challenge #3: Aircraft Weight and Balance 10/17/2014
Theme: Center of Gravity
Challenge #4: Lake Fish Estimates 11/7/2014
Theme: Sampling
Challenge #5: Milk Production 11/21/2014
Theme: Estimation
Challenge 6: Landfill Design 12/5/2014
Theme: Waste management
Challenge #7: the perfect Sauna (and the Green Inventors contest!) 12/19/2014
Theme: Heat Capacity
Challenge #8: Greatest Inventions of 2014 1/2/2015
Theme: Wow, a lot of cool stuff was invented in 2014!
Challenge #9: Frisbees and Paint Tanks 1/16/2015
Theme: Volume surprises
Challenge #10: Honey Bees 1/30/2015
Theme: Property of Honey
Challenge #11: Native American Bows 2/13/2015
Theme: Mechanical Advantage
Challenge #12: Boiling Water 2/27/2015
Theme: Boiling Point depression
Challenge #13: Micro Climates 3/13/2015
Theme: Weather
Challenge #14: Speed of Sound/Light 3/27/2015
Theme: Relative Speed
Challenge #15: Probabilities 4/10/2015
Theme: Statistical Process Control
Challenge #16: Brain Function 4/24/2015
Theme: Traumatic Brain Injury
Challenge #17: Chemical Reactions 5/8/2015
Theme: Runaway Reactions
Challenge #18: Trucks and Trampolines 5/22/2015
Theme: Counter Weight
Challenge #19: Fishing Boats 6/5/2015
Theme: Specific Gravity
Challenge #20: Climbing Trees 6/19/2015
Theme: NE MN Tree Variety
Challenge #21: Water Pressure 7/3/2015
Theme: Vacuum
Challenge #22: Firefighting 7/17/2015
Theme: Launch Angle
Challenge #23: Earth Temperature 7/31/2015
Theme: Relative Weather
Moe is Director of the Iron Range/UM Duluth Graduate Engineering Education Program located in Virginia, MN and Instructor of Chemical Engineering. For more information or interest in the MoeZone challenges, contact Moe at mbenda@d.umn.edu.
© J. Moe Benda 2015
© Hometown Focus