Bridging Storytelling and STEAM with Kristen Rodriguez

Episode Summary

What happens when you blend storytelling with STEAM education? You transform learning and encourage playful discovery. In this week's episode of the Adventures in Learning podcast, Kristen Rodriguez, a visionary youth services librarian from NSU Florida's Alvin Sherman Library, shares how her innovative library programs inspire creativity and curiosity in young minds. Kristen shows us strategies for seamlessly integrating literature with science through playful and imaginative activities. Whether you're an educator or simply passionate about creative learning, this episode is sure to spark new ideas and excitement.

Chapters:

0:00: Building STEM Connections Through Library Programs

Meet Kristen Rodriguez, who shares her Adventures in Learning from an elementary media specialist to an innovative librarian at NSU Florida. Discover how she engages young learners through hands-on library programs that merge storytelling with STEAM concepts, including her popular Stories in STEAM initiative and upcoming Star Trek-themed math activity.

11:12: The Importance of Play in Learning 

Explore the critical role of play in education and how it enhances diverse learning styles. Kristen discusses the integration of kinesthetic and artistic activities and shares her favorite picture books that creatively connect to STEAM experiences and learning. Gain insights into how educators can incorporate play to foster a joyful learning environment.

20:15: Exploring STEAM Programs at Alvin Sherman 

Dive into the vibrant STEAM programs at the Alvin Sherman Library that cater to all age groups. Learn about upcoming projects and how these initiatives promote curiosity and lifelong learning. Find out where to access more resources and events offered by the library.

Links:

• Visit the Alvin Sherman Library website to access Kristen's lesson plan ideas and learn more about their diverse range of programs and events.
• Follow Kristen Rodriguez on social media for updates on her innovative library programs and collaborations.

Join us for this inspiring conversation with Kristen Rodriguez and unlock new ways to integrate storytelling and STEAM in education. What are some of your favorite ways to connect storytelling and STEAM? Please share in the comments or send us a message.

#STEMEducation, #Storytelling, #LibraryPrograms, #Creativity, #Learning, #Literature, #Science, #Mazes, #TasteTests, #Play, #KinestheticActivities, #ArtisticActivities, #PictureBooks, #AlvinShermanLibrary, #StarTrek, #Mathematics, #CommunityCollaboration, #EducationalPrograms, #PlayfulConcepts, #TeachingPractices

Transcript

00:02 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So sometimes when you're presenting at a conference, you meet a conference participant that you realize is a kindred spirit. That happened to me this past summer when I was at Science in the Rockies with Steve Spangler. I was fortunate enough to meet Kristen Rodriguez, a librarian at NSU Florida who does amazing things in connecting stories and STEM, and so today we are going to have a wonderful conversation about all things play and STEM. And stay tuned, because I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation, kristen. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. It is so nice to have you here. So let's start with the question I'd like to ask everybody Tell us a little bit about your adventures in learning. What are you doing now and how did you? 

00:49 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
get there, particularly those in elementary school. So I do a lot of programs related to literature, stem, and prior to coming here I've been here for eight years now. I was an elementary media specialist, so my background actually started more on the education side. So when I came over to public library services I wanted to find a way to kind of bring in that educational aspect but also the fun learning part that librarians get to do all the time. So that's what I get to do now and I love it. 

01:33 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So you talked a little bit about hands on. Give us an example of what sort of that hands on fun looks like in a library setting. 

01:41 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
Sure. Well, I can give you an example of something I just did recently. This would be actually for my tweens, but some kids as young as seven decided to join my program because they were seeing what we were doing. But we created mazes and I just talked a little bit about the engineering design process and how it really is up to your imagination and I explained the four C's that I learned at the Steve Spangler Science in the Rockies conference. So we talked about critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity. 

02:16
So I just brought out a bunch of different materials and they got to build mazes with planks. They got to build mazes with magnets. They got to build mazes with planks, they got to build mazes with magnets, they got to build mazes with cardboard and it was all up to their imagination. And, like I said, kids as young as seven joined and it was a lot of fun, to the point where I overheard this boy speaking to his mom and saying I want to come back. And that's just always like a happy moment as a librarian and as an educator that you know that they really enjoyed what you were working on. And still they're learning those STEM aspects while doing these hands-on building activities. 

02:57 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And being a librarian, you have the opportunity to then also connect that to literature, I'm assuming as well. Yes, yeah. 

03:07 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
So with the older kids I mostly do book talks and I explain certain topics and then I give them kind of ideas of what books they could read that align with that. I do a lot of literature in my younger lower elementary programs called Stories in STEAM, where I actually do a story time and I read a book and then we do the hands-on activities afterwards and that has actually been my most successful program so far this fall. I'm very excited to like continue on. 

03:42 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, stories in STEAM is something that I'm certainly passionate about. What are some examples of stories that you've connected to STEAM, some of your favorites? 

03:52 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
Well, I really love the one that I just did in September. I wanted to talk about fruit, so it started with the idea of apples but then I kind of brought into fruit because I love books by Jory John and he wrote a book called the Sour Grape. So I read that book and I had the kids interact with me and they were saying, grr, it was time in the story. And then I told them, because in the story the grape turns from something that's sweet to something sour, that they would get to try different fruits that I bought from the local grocery store and they had to do a taste test to find out if it's sweet or sour. And we talked about fruits and how they grow and seeds. So I connected it to other things but I tied it in with a fun picture book that I like. 

04:40 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Oh, I love that, and you mentioned when we were talking earlier that you've got a really cool collaboration coming up with your stories and steam. Can you talk a little bit about ways that you partner with the community to build some of these programs as well? 

05:06 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
we're a joint use facility. So at NSU Florida I work at the Alvin Sherman Library. That's both an academic and a public library, so I get to work with NSU professors to implement programs, particularly my STEM programs, and next month I'm very excited about our Stories. In STEAM topic we are going to learn about space and the department chair for mathematics has a Star Trek themed mathematics activity that he's going to scale down for that lower elementary age level. So I'm very excited for them to learn about math in a fun way and tying into pop culture as well. 

05:39 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Oh, that sounds really fun. So you were talking about doing STEAM and STEM with children basically of all ages. How do you find that you need to set up these projects so that they understand what's going on? Do you scale them differently depending on the ages? What do you do? 

05:56 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
I absolutely scale them and, just having my educator background, I always start looking at standards. So I typically use CPOMS, which is a resource that a lot of Florida schools use, and then I kind of see how can I modify any activity to do the same sort of project but in a way that kids of different ages can understand, and I don't know why. This is the first example that came to mind, but the simple activity of making ice cream, where you get, you know, the cream and the sugar and all that. So for the older kids we talked about physical changes versus chemical changes and then so we were doing that and then we had to explain how we know, by making the ice cream, what that is. So that would be something scaled for, like the tweenage. 

06:47
Well, I ended up doing the same ice cream activity with my younger kids when we were talking about senses, and so, as they were doing, we talked about how does it feel like with the ice, and then when you're kind of like blending it all together, you could feel the liquid kind starting to harden, how does it taste, and then they add the flavors. So we were talking about senses. So I really like to kind of find activities that are more broad in scope, or just you could tailor it to different concepts and then I could go from there, and I really like doing that. But it starts by knowing standards and what skill sets these kids have at different age levels. 

07:26 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That makes a lot of sense, and you're also, I think, you're building connections, and so part of what you're doing is you're finding phenomena that work and they get them engaged no matter what the age, but then you're able to tweak it and really adjust it to the standards or to the age level, sort of to their comprehension. You can take the same phenomena and build it all the way up and down the scale and you'll get something different every time. 

07:52 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
Yeah, and I know upcoming, I'm going to use some of my Steve Spangler goodies but I'm going to be doing forces in motion for both the littles and the older, but just kind of tailoring it to their competencies there as well. So I'm looking forward to that. 

08:08 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
It's coming up later in the fall, what kind of ideas do you have for force in motion? 

08:14 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
So with the youngers it's a big thing, especially in kindergarten, first grade, to learn about like, push and pull. So I remember there is that trick and I have the little tablecloth thing where then they like, pull, the, the like and then like everything's like or like the one with the egg, and then they knock it over and it falls in. 

08:33
But then with the older kids we could talk about energy and forces in a way that is more like centripetal force, and so I have his little bass play where you put the cup of water, then you spin it around, so we can do that with the older kids, but again the same basic idea of force and motion and how things work. So, yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. 

08:55 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. So you've had a chance to sort of see education from a couple of different points of view. You've been in the schools and now you're seeing it from the library point of view, where you're sort of working as an informal educator and planning programs where you've got kids from all backgrounds coming in. Based on sort of those two hats, what do you think are some of the biggest issues facing educators right now and how can we help them? 

09:23 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
It's a great, great question. 

09:25
I will say something that I appreciate now being, as you mentioned, an informal educator, is I have a little bit more independence on what I can do. 

09:44
I have more opportunities to kind of really step back and say, like, what I would enjoy and what I think the participants would enjoy, whereas I feel like in the school they're very set on what they have to do when they have to do it, and then they're focusing on preparing for standard testing. And while I do think that we should all know what age and what competencies we were just talking about, like different ages are appropriate, I do feel like it can kind of stifle creativity or just get people to think like they have to pass this and it it just kind of narrows your focus a little bit, whereas I get to think more in terms of like fun, and so I think the problem I'm seeing is that they're feeling so much pressure and not enough support, and so it just kind of like guides their day-to-day activities. So I want to be there to support and and just provide extra opportunities for kids to have fun while learning and that makes sense. 

10:41 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And I think that it takes sort of a village to help us get back to that notion of learning through play, that we learn better when we're able to be hands-on and playful, and sometimes that goes to the wayside when we feel so swamped and pressured by, as you said, the standards and just the day-to-day things that are thrown on our plates. So hopefully we informal educators can provide a breathing space for those who are doing the heroic work of classrooms every day, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about play. You know how do you use play in your day-to-day work? Why is play important to you? 

11:21 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
That's a good question and I would like to preface this by saying that I've learned that play can be done in multiple like styles and ways. There's not just one way to play Absolutely like styles and ways. There's not just one way to play Absolutely. Yeah, and I really learned that with my own child because I'm more of a play and a problem solving, like what we did yesterday with the STEM for Tweens program, where you're building and you're kind of like figuring things out and testing things. And my son is very imaginative play and so I try to now kind of incorporate that to help with those learning styles. And one of the things that he's like taught me is like this is really cute, but he's into fishing right now and so he will have me pretend to like go fishing and he will pretend to be a certain fish and, based on the fish he chooses, he will explain like no, you have to do harder, because this is bigger and it's heavier. And he will pretend to be a certain fish and, based on the fish he chooses, he will explain like no, you have to do harder, because this is bigger and it's heavier. And he's describing all these fish to me and he starts acting like the fish and I'm just like I'm learning about fish from him and we're just playing like a fishing game. 

12:29
So I'm really trying to find new and different ways to kind of incorporate those different learning styles and preferences to do play and, as I mentioned, I already do a lot of hands-on work but I try to do because there are also people who are more artsy. 

12:47
So even like this month, when we did the stories and steam related to fruit, I had people kind of build and create different fruits and they get to choose the seeds, because we're also talking about how fruits grow. But this way kind of tapped into the more artsy side. So you can still do stem and we do call it stories and scenes to kind of let families know that we encourage artistic pursuits as well, but just kind of, yeah, get them to still demonstrate their learning and knowledge by doing different things. Um, and I remember there's another thing that I I did with a habitat program where kids design and built their own habitat with play-doh and like that's not something. I'm not a creative person that way, but for someone else there was a beautiful way that they can illustrate where animals lives and what it looked like. So I'm a huge fan of incorporating play in the programs. 

13:44 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Absolutely. And I think also when we can build in, you know, as you said, the imagination, the chance to play, the chance to create, the chance to use their bodies, because some kids are very kinesthetic learners, and so when you can do things like let them practice the walks of the different animals or, you know, let them act out the science concept maybe you're acting out the water cycle it just gives them another chance to demonstrate what they know. I love all of that. I think that's really powerful. And you, being a librarian, I'm going to have to ask these questions because you know we can't not have a conversation about books while we're having this conversation. So I'm going to start with you what were the picture books that inspired you when you were younger or that are inspiring you now as a parent? And then we'll move into what's inspiring you professionally, and then we'll move into what's inspiring you professionally, ooh, okay. 

14:42 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
So I as a kid I liked the visual styles of Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr Still love them to this day. I liked the building and the repetition. I feel like it was very good for memory for me and I felt like it was done in a very playful way. So you learned about opposites, animals, the alphabet, things like that. So as a kid those really stood out to me and kind of stuck with me to this day. I like to use fun books, books that with my son, books that he can kind of engage with me so he does enjoy Eric Carle as well. But I like to use some like Greg Pizzoli books which are humorous. Or I mentioned before Jory John. He loves those we read, like the couch potato, the big cheese, things like that. The big cheese, things like that, thinking, what else I like? There's so many. Bob Shea is another fun author that writes about different things in a humorous style. 

15:46 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And then, as you're thinking about books that inspire your work with STEM and STEAM, what are some of your favorite go-tos or some that you've recently discovered that you think teachers should know about? 

15:57 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
Yeah, so there are some. I'm going to cheat a little bit because these are like non-fiction authors, but I feel like the way. 

16:05 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that okay non-fiction and picture books. 

16:10 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
They are a thing and and, and I feel like there are several authors that know how to write books in such a way that it reads like a story book, but you are learning about a certain topic. So, um, some examples that I love are kristin foot, and she writes like how to survive as a shark or how to survive as a firefly, but you're learning facts about these animals while they're figuring out, and you know getting into trouble with certain things. Um, and then I like stacy mcannoltyulty because it's very colorful and playful and it's about, like she does, a lot of nature, like the sun and earth, and I think those are great as well. 

16:54
I also like I don't want to say oh, I'm forgetting the name. The last name is Davis or Davies. I want to say it's Nicola Davis or Davies, but it's kind of like almost a cause and effect or like who lives here and then you open so you see a picture, and then they're like flaps. I love things like that because it kind of gamifies it and makes it a little bit more playful, rather than here is the book about this, so I really enjoy those as well. 

17:22 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Oh, that's wonderful. Now, are there any special projects coming up, any special things you've got going on at the library that you want to talk about? 

17:31 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
Oh well, there was that upcoming Stories in STEAM one with the NSC professors that I work with, which is always exciting. I have to think about any others that might be coming up, because I mostly do like I do a variety of activities, but I mostly do in the STEM fields. The thing for the lower elementary and upper elementary oh, can I talk about something that it is like it is upper elementary tweens. Of course, this is another community partner that we have. They're called Speakers and Bugs and they actually helped me with a preschool science series that I had, which was a lot of fun, and she she actually had to scale down her lessons because she mostly does elementary related activities, but we wanted to do something for the little kids to introduce science topics. 

18:18
But well, we had an extra week because I have like a weekly rotation for month to month and we have an extra Tuesday in October and I wanted to do another fun STEM based activity. So what she's going to do is kind of like a Halloween-esque wizard week. So I'm going to pull some like chapter books about wizards which are really big in like middle grade absolutely, and she's going to kind of talk about we mentioned this before but like a chemistry thing and they'll build like potions and she'll talk about that. So it's like a wizardry stem that's coming up next month. That's another fun one I'm looking forward to. 

18:56 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Oh, that's very fun. You know you might also if you're looking for a picture book connection with that Franken slime is a great one and you can connect the slime making to it. But it's a beautiful multicultural picture book and is just fun and humorous and even your older kids would get a kick out of it. 

19:14 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
I'll have to check to see if our library has that, but that sounds amazing and a perfect connection. 

19:20 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So last question for today. 

19:24 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
What brings you joy? Are we speaking in general? 

19:28 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
or work related. 

19:32 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
It can be whatever you want it to be, the topic is yours. I so I kind of am, in my own way, a little bit of an explorer, so I do love to travel and find new places and to me, cause I feel like it taps into learning and just trying different things, things that you haven't experienced before. So for me, I feel like travel is a big part of bringing you joy do you have any fun trips planned or bucket list places you're dreaming of? 

20:01
well, tentative, we're gonna try to to go to Paris and London next year. 

20:06 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So I'm very forward. Yeah Well, Kristen Rodriguez, thank you so much for being on the Adventures in Learning podcast. We so appreciate your take on stories and STEAM and we can't wait to hear a little bit more. If people want to follow you, where should they go to learn more about the programs? 

20:28 - Kristen Rodriguez (Guest)
So I think the best way to learn is to go to our website. If you just do an online search for the Alvin Sherman Library, you can learn more about all of our events for all ages Sounds great. 

20:41 - Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Thank you for joining us. Thank you.