LAURINBURG — School officials were treated to a tour of the district’s new STEAM3 Mobile Classroom during the monthly Committee of the Whole meeting.
The mobile classroom is an RV that has been converted into a STEAM3 — Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Medicine, and Manufacturing — classroom that allows students to practice project-based learning.
For the 2017-18 school year STEM facilitator Amber Hutchins will work with the district’s fifth grade students learn how the lessons they are learning in their classrooms can be applied in real-life situations.
“It’s based on the idea of teaching our students to be problem solvers,” said Hutchins. “It’s not just going at everything like, here’s how you solve this problem. It’s how can I solve this problem for a bigger purpose. We have to go early on and show them how to apply that math or science in a bigger setting.”
Fifth-grade students were selected as the first-grade level to test out the STEAM3 Mobile Classroom because those students take math, science and English (ELA) End-of-Grade tests.
The traveling classroom is filled with a myriad of hands-on learning modules with real-world applications along with some of the latest technology available including an interactive TV, tablets and a Carvey, a machine that lets students cut out and design things.
Scotland County Schools Superintendent Ron Hargrave said this type of investment will pay off in the future for the students and the community.
“All economic indicators point to exponential growth in STEAM related careers over the next 20 years — with an increase of over 1 million jobs in the next five years,” Hargrave said. “We are doing our students a disservice if we don’t start preparing them now for the world and workforce they will face when they graduate. We believe that their future, and truly our future, is worth the investment now.”
The mobile classroom meets the standard space learning requirements set by the state and can fit between 15 to 18 elementary students, depending on the activity and the weather. There are two awnings mounted on the outside of the RV so students can have class outside. It is one of only two in the state with the other in the Rowan-Salisbury school district.
Hutchins said she will be working with all of the fifth grade teachers in the district to make sure her hands-on lessons line up with what the students are learning in their normal classroom.
“I’ll be working closely with teachers doing a pre-lesson, my lesson and post lesson so it’s not disconnected from what they’re doing,” said Hutchins. “When I visit the school it will be based on the standards they are working with that quarter. I’m trying to support them and show the students the necessity of this.”
After the tour of the mobile classroom, STEM Academy students Braxton Campbell and Sarah Jenkins demonstrated different project-based learning to the members of the school board.
Campbell showed board chair Jeff Byrd, Summer Gainey, Herman Tyson and Caroline Banks, how to use a rubber band to propel a car forward. How tight to make the rubber band is a lesson in kinetic energy, the tighter the rubber band the farther the car would travel.
Jenkins showed Wayne Cromartie and Rick Singletary how to determine how much counter weight is needed to move an object across the table.
“We hear all the time from kids, is how does everything relate together? and with these hands on activities they will see how the math, writing and science how it all comes in together,” said Valerie Williams, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.
The mobile classrooms will allow teachers to expose young children to the STEAM curriculum in the hopes of getting them interested in going to the STEM Academy at Carver Middle School when they reach eighth grade.
“This might seem like a game to them now, but resources like the STEAM3 Mobile Classroom is just one example of how we have to adapt and in many ways, change the way we teach children.” said Hargrave. “We want them to use these tools, see how they work, experience them and then think about problem solving. These technologies will soon be how people solve many of the world’s problems.”
The STEAM mobile classroom will be open for the community to tour on Aug. 19 as part of the Back to School — Stay in School event at the high school hosted by the local branch of the NAACP.
Amber Hatten can be reached at 910-506-3170.
