Wow! Our STEM students are off and running, and it’s hard to believe how fast the school year is moving. The start of the 2019-2020 school year has been a particularly exciting time with respect to academics and staffing for the STEM Department. For starters, we added several new STEM elective course offerings in the areas of genetics, computer coding, and applications design. These new courses seamlessly blend with our existing overall curricular program. The goal within all of our STEM courses is to provide students with opportunities to develop critical thinking skills that engage & capture student interest and spark curiosity. This year we are incorporating content using emerging technologies like virtual and augmented reality. We also continue to integrate hands-on projects that encourage students to demonstrate real-world application of the content material that they are learning within their courses.
We are pleased to welcome Mary Saville and Honoria Nadeau to the STEM instructional staff. Mrs. Saville is teaching the newly developed Coding and Applications Design classes as well as AP Computer Science. In addition, Mrs. Saville will be working with Middle School students in the MS STEM and Robotics classes. Mrs. Nadeau will be spearheading the creation of this year’s yearbook along with teaching Digital Design and MS Technology classes.
According to STEM experts, it is estimated that by 2022 there will be 9 million jobs in the STEM industry, therefore, our efforts and focus do not lie solely with the 7-12 grade students. As part of our school-wide commitment to STEM, we continue to collaborate school-wide with K-12th teachers in order to integrate STEM skills within all subjects and throughout all grade levels. We are dedicated to this effort in order to expose our students to evolving STEM disciplines. It is our desire to inspire all our students to see themselves as active contributors in the development of STEM applications and innovations. One can only imagine what opportunities lie ahead for the members of the class of 2030 and beyond. This is why we are committed to developing and improving our STEM education initiative at CCS. STEM education aims to create lifelong learners who come to realize their full potential, in fields they do not know and maybe didn’t consider, but now are willing to embrace. The CCS STEM program continues to prepare students to do things that they only once dreamed of doing.
