Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Last week was another first for me. It was the first time I have ever flown anywhere for a work trip. I've driven to San Diego twice for conferences, and attended local events here in Los Angeles but on April 20th, I flew from Long Beach to San Jose with three of my colleagues to attend the Santa Clara County Office of Education STEAM 2017 Conference.

One of the highlights of the event was touring a Dartmouth Middle School's MakerSpace. Dartmouth is a public school and they've been integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math (STEAM) into their curriculum over the past several years. Two years ago they received a Gen7 modular building through a bond from the community. A modular building is prefabricated and designed to be good for the environment. For example, it utilizes solar energy and sustainable design. One of the best things about the design of the building is the open spaces within and different types of furniture. Dartmouth uses the building for elective classes such as coding, circuitry, product design, etc. They also give presentations in the room, and utilize the rooms green screen for video production. There are two main classrooms in the building for student instruction and the middle room had glass walls that could be used to rearrange the room's footprint and could be checked out for use by any teacher in the school. The glass walls were covered in notes and mathematical equations and reminded me of many tech and science movie scenes from the past few years.

Gen7 space at Dartmouth

Gen7 space at Dartmouth

The students are using the Gen7 space to learn math and science concepts but they're also using the space to solve real world problems that involve research, innovation, brainstorming and group work. Trial and error as well as failure were topics we discussed on our visit. It was also so cool to hear how a student at the school had created a product to help a teacher during her time in the modular building that resulted in her first patent!

Gen7 space at Dartmouth

Gen7 space at Dartmouth

In addition to the site visit, I also attended several workshops. One workshop focused on Taiko drumming, which emphasized the art part of STEAM. In this worksho
p I was reminded that art should not be separate from engineering and technology and all the rest of STEAM because to play the drums is to understand the drums and to know how they are constructed and why they make the music that they do. Another workshop introduced city-building. Helping children to understand the larger city around them, how they impact their city, and how their city affects them is crucial to STEAM and STEAM ideals.

Gen7 space at Dartmouth

The keynote speaker of the conference was Christine McKinley, the author of Physics for Rockstars. At the conference she talked about the importance of not just teaching engineering in schools but of encouraging girls in particular to study STEAM. At John Burroughs Middle School we've talked about this topic often and how to approach it. Hearing McKinley speak only cemented our need to take the next steps to help our girls thrive in a STEAM
environment.

Being able to see the space at Dartmouth and hear from all of the speakers and workshop leaders helped me to visualize just how we at JBMS can integrate STEAM and where we can go from there. It won't happen overnight but it's a process we're committed to starting.

Dr. Martinez (principal), Ms. Lee (assistant principal),
me (instructional coach) & Ms. Lee Suh (instructional coach)