Kelly schools look to add a STEM club

BENTON, Mo. — Vicky Woods, Scott County R-4 “Kelly” science sixth and seventh grade teacher, recently updated the board of education with a new engaging extracurricular organization for middle schoolers called STEM.

As explained by Woods during the Scott County R-4 school board meeting on May 8, the students will focus on topics of interest within the STEM framework and will be admitted through an application process. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and according to Woods, the club has a lot to offer students.

Woods said STEM builds resilience in a safe setting by allowing children to fail and try again, much as those individuals are driving today’s advancements. It promotes collaboration while working toward a common objective and teaches students problem-solving skills as well as critical thinking abilities. Woods said STEM promotes the use of technology while training students for careers requiring advanced abilities, such as coding.

According to Woods, the club also emphasizes knowledge application, which is the ultimate purpose of education, as well as fosters ingenuity and creativity, which can lead to new ideas and innovations.

“It allows the kids to use brain processes and educational resources in a whole, brand new way,” Woods said. “They get to look at a problem, and instead of looking at me for a solution to their problem, they get to brainstorm multiple ways for this to be solved.”

Woods added STEM programs in the United States include more hands-on learning than what a student may acquire from a textbook or a lecture.

“They are putting together all of these components to introduce our students to different career choices that they may not yet realize,” Woods said.

Woods claimed the club is not required for students with good grade-point averages, or GPAs, and that the group is for students who may not fit into a BETA Club context but would flourish in a hands-on, intensive circumstance such as STEM.

“We know that our BETA students can look at a problem, but do we know that child over there that isn’t a part of BETA?” Woods said. “Maybe we could grasp him and pop that bubble for him to where he now knows, ‘Hey, I can start learning in a new and fresh way by using my hand on skills.’”

According to Woods, the U.S. Department of Education supports STEM initiatives and believes the club will help kids develop their talents.

“It will build students’ content knowledge and literacy,” Woods said. “And it should not depend upon a student’s ZIP code, and we should not look at this program as if it can only be done in a wealthy school district.”

Woods said the extracurricular group will meet once a week and focus on areas of interest within the STEM framework.

Woods also underlined that the club will not replace the curriculum, but rather enhance it, and everything they will focus on will be aligned with Missouri science, technology, engineering and mathematics standards.

Woods went on to say she has already begun planning for the possible STEM club by going through a specific training program called Learning Blade.

“Learning Blade is a program that is free and is recommended by DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education),” Woods said. “It has projects, and it can take a student from a man running in a marathon who collapses all the way through the Air Evac that takes him, how that helicopter works, how an ER works, how an open-heart surgery works, physical therapy, occupational therapy, all the way to the end.”

Students can accomplish missions that will take them through a variety of activities using Learning Blade.

“There are 11 missions they can go through, and that is thousands of experiences that we would not be able to give the kids,” Woods said.

Students would go through missions such as manufacturing cars, where they would use current manufacturing processes to design and build a new concept car, and career clusters, advanced manufacturing, and industrial engineering. All of this, according to Woods, may begin in sixth grade.

“They are also going to go through what is called dolphin rescue; they are going to go through everything it would take for a dolphin that doesn’t have a tail and will be able to design an artificial prosthetic tail to allow the dolphin to live,” Woods said. “For energy resources, they are going to look at alternative sources of energy and how to make it more efficient.”

Other missions students could go through include rescue robots, an introduction to computer science, a flu outbreak, transportation congestion and more.

Woods said she is researching grant opportunities to fund the club, looking into potential fundraising opportunities and preparing a donation letter to submit to businesses interested in funding the organization.

“We need to move forward,” Woods said. “Other schools in the area have STEM classes, they have STEM clubs, they have robotic clubs, and if we want to compete in the future, we need to look at some of these programs and start bringing them here to our school.”