Adventure Stem
Program: A brief history and review
By Nickolas, Cameron, Michael, and Jason
The
Adventure Stem Program was started in August 2009. It is a 5th-8th grade program that is located
at Herman Middle School in the Oak Grove School District. It has four teachers and works with Herman
school with the P.E. teachers and sometimes electives. It is different than other programs because
5th and 6th graders have schedules similar to middle school students. The program has 6 periods like middle
school. It includes math, English,
Social Studies, P.E., Science, Band and an elective. The program focuses more on science and
technology and uses laptops in the classroom.
Adventure
is project based learning. The
philosophy of Adventure is that students learn better when engaged in hands on
learning. Adventure wants to prepare
students by having them use Science, Mathematics, Technology and
Engineering. It wants to help students
be prepared with 21st Century skills and be able to work together well in
groups and with people. There was not
another program like Adventure before it started.
Before
Adventure, Herman used the area for special classes like sewing classes and
workshop. After a while, the rooms were
not being used so Adventure was created and used the area. Adventure was started by Manny Barbera, who
used to be the superintendent of Oak Grove School District. Some names thought
of for Adventure were Lighthouse and The Program. Ms. Garcia chose the name Adventure Stems
instead. After talking to Ms. Garcia and
Ms. McMillan, Adventure teachers, we learned one of the best events Adventure
ever had was trash to treasure in every classroom. One of the hardest parts of making Adventure
was creating the curriculum and making sure that kids have enough hands on
projects to do and have fun doing them.
In conclusion, Adventure is only a few years old and still
has room to grow and change. One thing
that could be changed about Adventure is having more space and more kids in the
program. Adventure is a good program
that helps prepare kids for the world today.
It is a great idea and helps learn skills that are used in the workforce
and the real world. Maybe more programs
like Adventures can be started.