STEM Project Time of the Year

2018 STEM project is happening at TCS once again this year, making a lot of noise and generating high expectations. The entire Middle School is anxiously waiting for this day of presentations.

Since the beginning of 4th quarter, until June 6th, every single Middle School student has been working on this project where everybody follows the same topic, hoping to make an unforgettable fair. They have been working on this during some of their technology, science, and math classes. This is a project that helps students think globally by combining different areas like math and science.

“STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math, sometimes it may be STEEM with an art component or SHTEEM which also includes a history component,”Juan Sebastian Cardona, 7th grade Life Science teacher clarified.  

STEM project is one of the most complete projects TCS students participate in, it merges many areas, making it important for many classes and bases of students lives. Students may work on this project on a bunch of classes, allowing them to have more time and space to work on it.

“Projects this year are different than the ones in the past because we are using system thinking tools in order to understand the problems in a more complex way.” Britta Mccarthy, 8th grade Science teacher emphasized.

Without leaving behind the essence of the STEM project, this year’s activities will be much more deeper, making students think in a more complete way and work not only on the basics of the STEM, but thinking as global citizens who really want to generate a change.

“The purpose behind the fair is to provide a context in which students can share the things they have been learning and hopefully inspire others to take action on local problems that are related to the sustainable development goals.” Mccarthy replied.

STEM projects have a purpose that goes farther away than just a heavy grade for multiple classes. The purpose behind this fair also includes inspiring people to make a change and help the problematics that we find not only in our society but in many more. Brilliant ideas are found at this fair, hoping to create an impact that will overcome just TCS campus.

“We want our kids to be critical thinkers, designing solutions to everyday issues, and our STEM fair is design around the STG goals, the 17 goals created by the UN in order to have a more equitative goal by the year of 2050.” Cardona explained.

TCS STEM project is done not only because it’s required for students in their engineering standards that the NGSS asks for, but our school is respecting their ethics and continuing the search of a fair society.

“Many of this projects are long life learning projects that students start in school and we have kids that are even in High School and they keep on working on projects they began 5-6 years ago feeling passionate about them.” Cardona expressed.

STEM projects are a deal of continuous learning and progress for students who want to go above and beyond. This project is one of the few projects that remain in students’ memories and become so remarkable for them.

“We wanted to focus more on complex thinking this year, instead of building a project that wouldn’t serve a purpose beyond the day of the fair,” Mccarthy shared.