Making meaning

It starts with a question. How did this bag of sunflower seeds get here?

As Kim Fourez’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) class sat around the table the first week of school, they talked about all the industries and skills necessary to create a product.

“How did computer science and STEM help that stuff to get here?” Fourez said. “You never really think. Someone had to design the bag, someone had to create a hybrid that’s drought resistant.”

When Creston Middle School Principal Lesa Downing popped into the class, she realized she also didn’t know how sunflower seeds are harvested. They looked it up together. “They use combines like we do for corn,” she said. “Then we started talking about the technology of GPS. We had so much fun.”

STEM grants

In 38 years of education, Fourez has written many grant applications, and she has no plans of slowing down. This year, she was awarded three STEM Scale Up grants from the governor’s Iowa STEM council.

The first grant was for a Hummingbird kit - a pocket-sized computer. “These are a little more physical,” Fourez said. “It goes to the component by a wire so the kids can see the circuitry.”

The second was for 15 programmable finch robots. “One thing with computing is the vision of it,” Fourez said. The Finches provide the kids the chance to see their program in action, like programming it to draw a triangle.

The third grant purchased a “Ready Set Drone” kit with 12 drones for the students to use. Students will learn to fly and capture aerial photos and videos, exploring the real-world applications and possibilities of drones. Fourez plans to use the drones for her graphic and media design elective class to create a virtual tour of the school for new students using drone footage.

“They have to go through each of the courses to prove they can do it,” Fourez said. “They all have responsibilities that they have to do.” The pilot, mechanic, safety officer and spotter collaborate to make the flight successful.

PLACE

For Fourez, it was important her students had a place to fail and keep trying. “This is called the place,” she said. “We want it to be the place you want to be.”

PLACE stands for Panther Learning And Creative Environment. “The kids really enjoy coming in here,” Fourez said. “I’m hoping they gain back that creativity they kind of lose.”

Downing said students are so often worried about getting the right answer for teachers and parents, they lose their creativity along the way. “In this class, there’s not a right answer,” she said. “If you don’t get it the first time, that just means you didn’t get it yet. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to get it. Just not yet. That’s a good thing to teach kids, that perseverance. You might not get it right away, but keep trying.”

In her classes, Fourez teaches her students they have to fail to learn. “As soon as they get older and that peer pressure happens, it’s awfully hard on our kids to fail,” she said. “It’s just like aluminum boats we’re going to be doing. I said it’s probably going to sink. It’s going to have to sink, but what did you learn from it?”

Fourez said the district believes in her STEM work in the middle school. “She (Downing) very much wants to make sure these kids have a good experience,” Fourez said. “Some days, they don’t have a lot to be happy about.”

In a society concerned with fitting in, Downing wants her students to have a place to be different. “I think STEM helps these kids that are outside the box, that are different, that have different interests,” she said. “It helps them connect at our school.”

Fourez embraces the kids knowing things she doesn’t know. “That’s the whole point of collaborating,” she said. “Well what would you have done? They feel pretty good about it and I want them to feel good about it.”

Interdisciplinary Learning

By nature, STEM combines the principles of four different disciplines. While Fourez specializes in teaching computer science, she would love to get a math teacher involved to bring in that part of STEM. Even outside the four major disciplines, she shows her students how language arts and other areas of study all tie in together.

One of their plans to bring it all together is to build a functioning store to sell Panthers gear. It starts with the kids understanding the financial literacy of it - creating a financial plan.

“We’ve changed one of the rooms in here into an environment where kids can come in and look at the things,” Fourez said. Her graphic and media design students would design the merchandise while other students operate the store.

“I’m trying to have a real purpose to what you’re learning,” she said. “Not just type this up and do it.”

She hopes to introduce her students to many different areas of learning to help bridge the learning gap between middle and high school.

“That’s what STEM is, building all those different principles and tying it up in a bow,” Fourez said. “It’s making meaning. A lot of making meaning.”