STEM Fever Spreads into the Specials Rotation

During the school year last year, Moore County Schools’ DIF team helped implement the Engineering Thread that used the engineering and design process throughout many of our curricular areas and aligned to standards in grades K-5. This was well received at the elementary level that we launched the Engineering Thread in middle grades as well.  

Another spin off from the success of our engineering lessons, has been the addition of a new class at Aberdeen Primary and Robbins Elementary.  Dr. Molly Capps and Mrs. Kim Bullard have added a STEM Class to their specials rotation. Students and parents are THRILLED that students get exposure to this type of learning on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  In class, students are learning to work collaboratively in teams to problem solve by asking questions, planning, creating, and redesigning.  So far this year student have participated in projects like figuring out how to construct a better basket for “Little Red Riding Hood”, designing a robotic predator and competing with other predators for resources, or building a boat that will float and save their animals in a flood.  Students are conceptualizing, building, and testing their solutions to these problems.  

The idea is that students exposed to STEM and the engineering process on a regular basis will learn to be problem solvers and think through this process in other aspects of learning. Think about when you explain steps in a process or write a paper, this thinking is very similar to the engineering process these students are learning to work through.

Public schools are tasked with building up 21st Century learners and preparing them for jobs that do not exist yet.  At Aberdeen Primary and Robbins Elementary, the STEM coaches, Ashley Luersman (@Miss_Luersman) and Kim Collazo (@kcollazo) are getting kids accustomed to solving real world problems and teaching them to think like engineers.  Through this process students are learning to think like an engineer and are applying their background knowledge in science, technology, and math to do so.  

What a wonderful opportunity for these Moore County students!