STEAMing toward the future
(File photo by MARY MALONE) Southside Elementary student Brooklynn Thompson discussed the "How Does Your Garden Grow?" project during the school's STEAM Exhibition Day in May 2017.
COCOLALLA — A "hidden treasure," are the words used by Lynette Leonard to describe Southside Elementary.
Leonard, the school's librarian, has been instrumental in bringing STEAM to Southside to better prepare the children for the future. For that reason, Leonard has written and received several grants to grow the school's STEAM program. Those grants have come from different organizations such as the Idaho Community Foundation, the Idaho STEM Action Center, the Idaho Commission for Libraries and Panhandle Alliance for Education.
"Through the help of all these wonderful grants, we are able to bring these kids opportunities that they would never have without these grants," Leonard said.
Leonard said she moved from a community where the kids had "lots of different opportunities," so when she moved to the area and began working at Southside, she recognized a need.
"These are rural kids and their opportunities are really limited," Leonard said. "I wanted to open doors for them that they may have never had because of the location where they live. My goal is to provide opportunities that will help them be competitive in the future. That is one of the greatest benefits of STEAM."
STEAM covers a lot of different career fields, she said, and companies are looking for employees with those STEAM skills. These skills are not limited to science, technology, engineering, art and math as the acronym indicates, she said. Students also learn collaboration and communication — being able to work with others.
Leonard has been building up the school library's makerspace with 3D printers, robotics and other miscellaneous STEAM items that teach circuitry, stop motion videos and more. It gives the students an opportunity to "come and build and create, and try new skills that they might be interested in," she said. Each Thursday is dedicated to STEAM projects, and the students each choose a project to work on for each trimester.
In the different grade levels, students learn a different level of STEAM skills. For example, Leonard said, when it comes to 3D printing, the kindergarten and first-grade students learn how to create simple 3D shapes. The middle grades, second through fourth, have the opportunity to use City X, which is a program where the students have to figure out and solve a problem in a city. Then they create a solution using the 3D printer. The fifth and sixth grade take that skill to the next level with FabSLAM.
In FabSLAM, students work to solve a problem and take it to competition. Idaho is one of three states that currently participating in the national competition, and this year's Southside FabSLAM team won first place in the North Idaho FabSLAM regional competition for their work on solving a transportation problem. They also took home the Students' Choice Award as voted on by the students from around the region who attended the competition.
Because of the snow and ice that builds up on the school's playground in the winter, the Southside FabSLAM team's project culminated in the development of a pair of 3D-printed snowshoes that come apart and fit easily into a backpack.
Southside has been working toward becoming a STEAM certified school for the past two years. Leonard said they are nearing the end of the long process.
"It's a very long, dedicated process that all of the teachers are dedicated to completing," she said.
In addition to the other STEAM programs and activities, Leonard said the school will host a STEAM Curiosity Camp. She said camp sign ups were opened up to Southside students first, and will soon be opened up to the community as well. Those interested in the camp can sign up on the school's website at ss.lposd.org.
The camp will be held over four days in the summer — June 25-26 and July 30-31 — and will include everything from coding and robotics, to "art colliding with science," she said.
It is another one of those things that I wanted to bring to the community, because there is not a lot of STEAM camps available in this area, and it provides our school kids another activity during the summer that will continue their education," Leonard said.
Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.