a culture of imagination.

SPARK Academy teaches elementary curriculum through the lens of science, technology, engineering and math. We encourage students to experiement, create and discover their own learning through a STEM-rich curriuclum and a culture that promotes exploration, taking chances and problem solving while learning the fundamental skills necessary to become a lifelong learner. We believe that play is learning, struggle may be productive, learning and mastery may be demonstrated in multiple ways, students should be creators as well as consumers and that our community is our classroom.

A unique characteristic of SPARK Academy is our emphasis on field research and field expert collaboration. Our school, like many others, has students from varied backgrounds that come to us with vastly different prior experiences. To help provide all of our students with a similar point of reference, we provide a variety of field research experiences. While many elementary schools take field trips at the end of a unit of study, we choose to do our trips as an element of our research, often at the very beginning or in the middle of our unit of study.

This field research experience provides a common point of reference for both the student and the teacher, gives our students the opportunity to see and interact with experts in the field, and provides relevance for what they are learning about and working on in school.

Prior to the trip, teachers set both student and parent expectations on both the purpose and goal of the trip. While on the trip, students meet with experts in an arranged class or in a question/answer setting and collect information or data that is then used to assist with their project back at school. The number of Field Research Trips each student attends is determined by the age of the child, with the kindergarten students going on two trips and our third graders going on five. When we plan the trips, we are cognizant of cost to families, but thanks to our generous parents, our school system foundation, and our partnership with Friendship Church, all students are able to attend Field Research Trips regardless of the family’s ability to pay.