STEM Academy Participates in Engineering Week

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All engineers start somewhere, but in Mansfield ISD young engineers can get a head start at the Jerry Knight STEM Academy. The academy, located at Brooks Wester Middle School, offers students an advanced academic program designed to provide a rigorous and focused course of study.

This week the academy hosted Engineering Week, a national initiative started by Discover E, a foundation aimed to increase engineering education in grade schools.

“The goal of Engineering Week was to help expose our kids to different types of engineers and careers so that they might be able to make better educated decisions to know what they’re going to study in high school and possibly college,” said Laura Thomason, a designer (teacher) at Jerry Knight.

Approximately 30 presenters ranging from coders to pilots and everything in between spoke with students this Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Knight designers also spent time helping students implement what they had learned in the classroom using activities like vision boards.

The presentations gave students a better understanding of possible STEM careers and offered insight on future career paths.

Nathan Ninh, a sixth-grader at Jerry Knight with aspirations of becoming an astronaut said, “I’ve learned that there is a lot of design that goes into engineering and that you have to think outside the box on most jobs, and I think that you also have to have a lot of good team skills.”

Jason Daniels, a software developer for Saddle Oak Software who has a daughter at the academy, enjoyed the opportunity to talk about his job with other students.

“I’m very excited to be here today,” said Daniels. “I love what they’ve been doing here with the kids and how they’re teaching them the engineering practices.”

Both students and teachers think Engineering Week provides a unique and much needed perspective.

“I feel this week is important because it helps us learn about things I feel like we would never learn from anywhere else,” said Ninh.

Students Teach Teachers in Summer Course

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When you want to learn about technology, sometimes you have to go to the ones who never knew life without it.

Fifth- and sixth-graders from Asa Low Intermediate School were the instructors for an interactive class at the Mansfield ISD Vision 2020 Summer Conference.

The students taught educators how different technological games and gadgets can be incorporated into the curriculum.

“It’s what we call a technology playground,” said Lynn Gustafson, MISD educational technology trainer. “We invited students who have used these devices and tools in their classroom setting.”

Gustafson said a similar student-taught class was offered at an educational technology conference earlier in the year. It received such rave reviews that the team decided to bring it back for the summer.

Mitchell maneuvers Sphero through an obstacle course.

DaMont Mitchell, an incoming seventh-grader, led a session about using robotics to enhance various lesson plans. The participants learned how to steer a spherical robot name Sphero.

“It’s also waterproof, so you can use it under water for exploration lessons,” Mitchell explained. “And it has a programming feature so that students can learn how to code the robot to move in a certain direction.”

At first, some of the instructors were surprised to see students leading the lesson, but they were impressed by the children’s intelligence.

“It was pretty cool that they are the ones that are knowledgeable and showing us how to do it,” said Lynette Paulino, teacher at J.L. Boren Elementary School. “It’s pretty cool that our future generations are teaching the teachers.”

The class organizers said the teachers were very responsive and appreciative for the students. The student instructors said that it was rewarding to give back.

“It feels good to be teaching the teachers because it feels like I’m the bigger person because teachers teach me, so I get to teach them,” said Mitchell.

The teachers now have the opportunity to write a grant to the MISD Education Foundation in hopes of getting the different devices that were demonstrated to them.

Hour of Code Ends via Chat with Polyvore CEO

Technology Applications students at T.A. Howard
video chatting with Polyvore CEO, Jess Lee.

It’s not every day that you get to talk to a major company’s CEO, but the technology applications (tech apps) students at T.A. Howard Middle School were able to as a prize given during the Hour of Code.

In celebration of Computer Science Education Week (December 8 - 14), the event is part of a nationwide movement to get schools to dedicate one hour of time for students to learn coding. During this hour, kids in participating schools learn how fun coding can be through interactive activities.

About two percent of college students graduate with a degree in computer science, and the numbers have dropped since the last decade. Yet, computing jobs make up 60 percent of all math and science-related jobs.

These startling statistics are what sparked T.A. Howard Middle School to take part in the event.

As an extra bonus, one out of 100 schools that participated in the Hour of Code won the opportunity to video chat with a celebrity or industry executive. Amy Toombs, T.A. Howard’s librarian, was selected to video chat with Jess Lee, CEO of the style website Polyvore.

“Jess Lee’s in-person speaking fee is $22,000, so getting to hear all her wealth of knowledge for free was exciting,” said Toombs. “I loved that she looked like a regular person and made big goals seem so attainable.”

T.A. Howard was one of seven schools allowed to ask one pre-approved question to Lee, so students in the tech apps classes brainstormed to come up with the perfect one. Eighth grader Hayden Hartrick was the lucky student who got to ask the question during the video chat.

The question: “To what do you attribute your success today? Was it a skill, a class, a mentor or life experience? All of the above?”

Eighth grader Hayden Hartrick asking Lee the
pre-approved question.

It was the only inquiry that prompted the style mogul to respond, “That is a good question!”

View full video chat here.

For Hartrick, the chat with Lee taught him to not back away from the hard things in life.

“If you see something that is difficult, you need to traverse that road and go for what you want,” he said.

Teachers and staff hope this event will encourage students to pursue a career in the computer science field.

“Coding is used for everything from gaming to everyday apps,” said Kristi Bell, instructional technology technician for Mansfield ISD. “These children are learning why coding is important and why they should learn it.”

Find out what you can do to foster the next generation of coders and programmers by visiting the Code.org website.