STEAM: Exploring life itself through our collaboration with MIT

This academic year sees the return of BIS Hanoi’s collaboration with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), where students will enjoy more unique challenges set by professors and experts from MIT.

This year’s set of challenges are all related to ‘LIFE’. Contemplating LIFE leads to lots of big questions: What makes something alive? What about life on another planet? What exactly is a thought or feeling?

Our three MIT Experts are doing cutting-edge research

Students will be challenged to creatively tackle the concepts of DNA, to search for exoplanets in the ‘goldilocks zone’, and to design their own developmental psychology experiments.

exploring very different areas of life: from asymmetric cell division, to the intangible workings of the mind, to the possibility of other life in our universe. Students will be challenged to creatively tackle the concepts of DNA, to search for exoplanets in the ‘goldilocks zone’, and to design their own developmental psychology experiments.

STEAM in Secondary

In Secondary STEAM classes we have been exploring the 6 ‘R's of sustainability. We have been thinking about how we can reduce the amount of plastic we consume, and

how we can reuse as much of it as possible to prevent it from entering the energydependent recycling process.

Year 9 students have also been exploring simple circuitries in a fun project making Wobble Bots. The Wobble Bots will be put to the test in battles against each other later this term! STEAM in Primary

In Primary, students have been working in teams to complete the first MIT challenge, ‘Cellfie Life!’, led by Dr. Yukito Yamashita.

The challenge focuses on the fact that, although all human cells are made up of the same materials and have the same set of instructions, our cells develop into vastly different types of cells. For example, gut cells are very different from brain cells, and skin cells, etc.

The challenge for each team was to use the same materials and set of instructions to make two very different prototypes. All teams were given paper, plasticine and pipe cleaners, alongside instructions on how to make two different prototypes from the same materials.

It was amazing to see the vastly different examples each group created. Using the same materials and instructions, our STEAM team’s efforts evolved into a wide range of different results – just like human cells.

David Burke STEAM teacher Stephen Labelle Primary Computing & STEAM Teacher