Library Happenings

Henning School

The Science Museum of Minnesota has given the Henning Public School Library a STEM grant in the form of STEM materials and Tools.  The devices that will be created will go along with Ojibwe Storytelling.  These projects will engage the students in an engineering activity that represents cultural stories of our state of Minnesota.  The intention of this activity is to support engagement through greater personal relevance.

There are two Ojibwe stories, “the Frog, the Snake, and the Cure for Poison Ivy and How Gwingwa’aage got his name.  The engineering activity is centered around the creation of an automaton to show a scene from one of the Maya stories.  Automata are mechanical devises that use wheels, axles, levers and other simple machines to make something move.  The students will practice building and solving problems.

The goal of the Science Museum of Minnesota is to get engineering activities into the hands of students who may not be able to get to the museum itself.  Their philosophy is that the final finished product isn’t as important as the confidence and academic skills that students build while cycling through the engineering design process.

We are excited to have received this grant and help our students engage in engineering.

We will have the finished products on display in the elementary hallway outside of the library after the students finish them and we hope that you can find yourself visiting us to see what the students have completed.