The History Of AdVENTURE

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.