Khwal12's Blog

STEM/STEAM/STREAM — MAKERSPACE ACTIVITIES

At St. Theresa School we began implementing STEM/STEAM/STREAM activities into the classroom in 2010.  Our desire was to have teacher begin to work collaboratively to create hands-on student learning experiences that integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, The Arts, Reading/Religion, and Mathematics.  We wanted to create an environment that encouraged students to understand that real world problems require us to use all of our learning experiences to come up with the best solutions to the world’s complex problems.  We also wanted them to understand that while we still often teach subject areas individually, we rarely use subject area content in an isolated fashion to deal with the world we live in.  Most of our K to 5 teachers have readily embraced this integrated approach to learning and are now creating their own thematic content and hands-on activities for their students, and working collaboratively across grade levels to do this.  Our Middle School teachers are still of the opinion that to prepare our students for their high school experience, teaching students in separate content areas is the most approprite approach.  They have however allowed the technology teacher/coordinator to introduce STEM/STEAM/STREAM content activities into the classroom as part of the technology classes.

We were able to encourage more participation among our fourth through eighth grade students in STEM/STEAM/STREAM activities, by encouraging them to participate STEM K’NEX Design Challenge competitions in the Regional IU20 competition.  We have learned a lot from those competitions and we are planning to field teamsand had teams in this competition up through the 2018-2019 school year.  Our youngest students in grades K to 3 got an opportunity to particiate in the Hellertown Library’s STEM KEVA Blocks Competition.

In addition to doing STEM, STEAM, and STREAM projects with each class this year, we turned our former computer lab area into the STEM Science Center during the 2015-2016 school year.

The Technology Coordinator also had the privilege of offering Diocesan Wide STEM/STEAM/STREAM training to the Diocesan Science Teaching staff during the 2017-2018 school year.

Our students in Grades 6 through 8 have also been participating in the National Engineering Education Week through programs sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Council of Civil Engineers with programs held at the PBS Channel 39 studios and Art Quest facilities.

During the 2014-2015 school year we decided to extend the rennovations to the former Computer Lab to include the foundations for a MakerSpace Program.  We purchased a variety of hand and power towels, gathered a variety of materials to be used for creating, and purchased, 3D printers, several robots, a number of computer building kits, and a drone, to expand out offerings to our students and also to expand our coding skills portion of our math curriculum.   With the closing of St. Theresa School in 2020 the majority of these resources were distributed to other schools in the Diocese.