What is STEM?
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
- A genuine STEM program is inquiry-based and emphasizes critical thinking, reasoning, collaboration, investigation, and creativity.
- STEM lessons are guided by the engineering design process - identifying problems and creating solutions.
- STEM lessons provide an environment in which students think, ask, collaborate, and make decisions as a team.
- When fully developed, STEM projects focus on real-world needs – economic, environmental, and social – and seek creative, practical solutions to those needs.
- Students learn that there can be multiple right answers and that failure is often part of the process of finding answers.
What does STEM look like at RSM Christian School?
Students collaborate, create, design, succeed, fail, and go back to the drawing board to re-think deeply and try, try again! After they have investigated on their own and made conclusions, students then take their results to the technology lab where they incorporate what they have learned into spreadsheets, databases, graphics, and more. Language arts is a key element of this process as students focus on the best ways to communicate their processes and their outcomes.
K through 5th grade:
- Focus on word processing, spreadsheets, databases, graphics, internet, multimedia, desktop publishing
- Unique lesson plans integrating classroom curriculum and STEM
- Introduction to coding for 2nd – 5th grades
6th grade
- challenges students to identify and research a pressing social issue
- create a technology-infused campaign seeking to raise awareness
- pose solutions
Students develop online research skills, learn basic coding skills, practice video production and editing, and learn to present their original content in a dynamic, digitally focused context.
7th & 8th grades
Students apply technology skills to develop a fictitious business and create a successful start-up company, developing real-world business skills.
