By Michael Benavides
Staff Writer
JACKSON – A celebration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has helped parents, teachers, students and administrators at the Elms Elementary School promote the school’s new Makerspace lab.
Parents and children spent the evening of Feb. 23 attending a Maker Faire and participating in a building challenge which tested their creativity and critical thinking skills.
The objective of the challenge was for the children and their parents to find a way to help the fairy tale character Rapunzel escape from her paper tower. The participants had 20 minutes to craft an escape route using only scissors, wooden craft sticks, paper, plastic drinking straws and tape.
Laura Spencer, the Executive Board vice president of the Elms Parent-Teacher Network, attended the event with her sons, Connor, fifth grade, and Jack, kindergarten. The boys built a zip-line to help Rapunzel escape from her tower.
Spencer praised her children’s teachers, who she said, “go above and beyond to be with the kids.”
Dawn Danza participated in the building challenge with her son, Christian, third grade. She said Christian used durable straws and wooden craft sticks to help Rapuzel escape the tower. She said her son, who may want to be an engineer someday, loves his STEM classes at school.
Danza said she enjoyed seeing all of the children use their creativity and reasoning skills during the building challenge.
“I love the fact that (the building challenge) gets their imagination going,” she said. “I like how parents were getting involved in the STEM event.”
Allison Erwin, coordinator of communications and technology for the Jackson School District, said the purpose of the Maker Faire was to unveil the new Makerspace classroom that is being created at Elms with funding from the OceanFirst Foundation.
Principal Michael Burgos said the event was a celebration of the school’s STEM initiative and Assistant Principal Lisa Lane said the goal of the building challenge was to make the students more effective problem solvers.
Lane said the Makerspace will have a LEGO theme because it was named after the grant that she and teacher Danielle Parella wrote: “Building STEM Literate Creators: Brick by Brick.”
Lane thanked the OceanFirst Foundation for providing the school with a $10,000 Model Classroom grant.
Burgos previously said the purpose of the grant “is to first increase students’ scientific and technological understanding as 21st century learners, and second, to incorporate play- and project-based experiments to our existing daily schedule to increase STEM literacy.”
The idea of this educational model is to help prepare students for careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“Students need to be prepared for what lies ahead of them. Creating a lab where students can partake in challenges, solve real world problems, foster design thinking and work collaboratively will help our learners lead us into the future of tomorrow. Essentially, we want to provide our students with exciting experiences that seamlessly carry over into their lives outside of school. We want to spark passions,” Burgos said.
The Makerspace classroom will have interactive STEM stations comprised of standing tables and flexible seating to accommodate small group collaboration with tool kits and digital technology.
Burgos said students will work in STEM research teams and will be able to move about the classroom freely.
The MakerSpace will have technology that includes Chromebook laptop computers; a Promethean Interactive Board for student research and presentations; robots that students will use to practice coding, and much more.
Burgos said the learning lab could revolutionize the way students are educated.
“The sustainability of the Makerspace learning lab is on track to reach new heights through innovative efforts to prepare students as 21st century competent, competitive learners,” the principal said.
“The Makerspace embraces modern society, revolutionizes old tenets of education and recognizes ways to excite learners, all critical components to the STEM education movement.
“With the heightened awareness of Makerspace (labs) and the over-excitement expressed by the innovators and their families, the Makerspace is turning into a widespread vehicle of learning that extends beyond the walls of the classroom,” Burgos said.