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STEM classes inspire creativity

LEWISTOWN — When dreams become realities good things happen. This proved to be true in many ways in the Mifflin County School District, as new ideas, new visions and different approaches to learning and passionate people came together to make a dream a reality.

Five years ago, a group of local teachers were asked to participate in exploring ways to bring more STEM offerings to the Mifflin County School District. After going through extensive training and starting to make a county-wide plan for how to incorporate STEM classes, Seth Hartman, Rebecca Connor and Jade Rubel were asked the question, “In your dream world how would you do this at the high school level?”

“Our dream was if we are allowed to be living in this crazy world of just throwing out ideas, we thought it would be awesome to offer a STEM class which we call STEM Studio, and that through that class we would be able to co-teach where we would be bringing in all those sections of STEM,” Connor said. “A lot of people think of STEM as being Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. We just wanted to really be cross-curricular, where you had teachers from different subject areas, no matter what those subject areas were, coming together to be able to help kids problem solve and to do hands on activities.”

Hartman said, “The real idea, the push behind it is just having time to work on a project and not just use your biology brain, math brain or history brain but bring everything together and work on things.We tried to make this class where students could have a lot of decision in what they are doing, do projects, do real life stuff. The class offers a lot of freedom to the students. As they can work in different classrooms or be in the Makers Space or working with a 3D printer.”

One example of the amazing things the students get to do involves a hospital in Kenya. In fall of 2018, the class was contacted by a Penn State professor who was part of a group that helped at the hospital. The group had given the hospital some 3D printers, but the hospital needed models designed for simple things like pill bottles, ways to measure newborn babies and other basic things. The students in the STEM class worked to come up with these models and then sent the design files to the hospital in Kenya. The hospital was then able to use these files with the model designs to make things they would not have had access to before.

Another unique thing about this STEM class is every student is encouraged to do a passion project. They are given 20 percent of their time to pursue something they are passionate about or interested in investigating or exploring on their own.

Students may use this time to be creative and see what new things they come up with. Students have done a variety of things like putting on charity events, learning new hobbies, cleaning up local parks, and building something in the community.

As students began to get creative with ideas, they started to look at things to do that could help people locally. At one point someone had contacted the STEM teachers and said they heard about the 3D printers and wanted to know if the kids would be able to design a device to help a middle schooler with a disability that made it difficult for him to keep his arm in place while using his iPad.

So, Hartman presented the idea and the kids were up for the challenge. After working on different prototypes, they were able to make a device that would secure his hand and help make a part of his daily life a little easier.

As word spread about what the students were doing another project was presented to make a device for another student, Arizona Grassmeyer, that was in a wheelchair. She wished to be able to raise her hand like the other children but with limited mobility, she was not able. The teams in the STEM class were excited for another project and got to work.

They invented a device that was activated by her pushing against a button with her head that would raise the device so the teacher was able to see when she had a question or something to share with the class. The students even asked her what her favorite things and colors were to personalize the device and make it special just for her.

The STEM Internship program, which is another class offered, was a program developed for students interested in becoming educators. It is open to any student who would like to take the class and explore but was primarily developed with future educators in mind. The main goal of the class is to give the students interested in teaching careers hands on experience with teaching by training them in STEM concepts and letting them create their own STEM lesson plan and activities and put them into action in our local elementary schools.

“Our kids are literally developing STEM lessons on technology, coding or problem solving and they are building that as a lesson plan and connecting with an elementary teacher,” Connor said, “Then they go into the classroom and run an activity for them. It is so special. The elementary kids are so excited — they want to know when the STEM interns are coming. The way that the elementary teachers showcase to our kids what it looks like to be an elementary teacher is inspiring. When the interns come back, they do not want to stop talking about their experience. They are so excited its awesome.”

Connor went on to say, “We want to showcase to our students how helpful this course can be to them in building towards their future. Getting hands on activities and career-oriented types of roles where they are working in a team environment and developing soft skills. All of the innovators of our modern-day world in places like Google, Apple and 3M talk about how kids don’t have soft skills. They don’t know how to work in a team. That is why we are so passionate about teaching them how they would work with a group of people so that going into the workforce this isn’t brand new. I am very proud of Mifflin County School District for being open minded and wanting to do this. It really is our administration and our superintendent; his heart is behind STEM so that really helps.”

The students that take the class will be able to be involved with some new and wonderful experiences and have their minds opened to new concepts. In turn, this can lead to exploring different types of career options and helping young people find their passion and reach their full potential.

Several of the students in the 2019-2020 STEM classes are seniors, and due to COVID-19, will not get to finish some of their hands-on projects or finish out their senior year with all the normal fun festivities and celebrations.

Instead, they carry with them the memories and experiences they had some of them being the wonderful things they did in their STEM classes in learning to work together, reach out to those in need and build new skill sets that will make their futures even more successful.

The STEM Studio includes Ethan Andrews, Jamin Beckwith, Abby Burke, Emily Hancock, Andrew Park, Logan Renninger, Mason Schomaker, Evan Smith, Elizabeth Stewart, Kordell White, Robert Haughwout and Tanya Allen.

STEM Intern seniors include Alexis Kerstetter, Brian Yetter, Jonathan Yourchak and Hannah Bonson.

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