RHMS STEAM Program Curriculum

The RHMS STEAM program's curriculum was built around creating meaningful experiences that connected to what was being taught in science through math, language arts, social studies, the arts, and CTAE. Why then become a STEAM program instead of a STEM program? The world that students live in is increasingly a world of digital resources. Science, technology, engineering, and math also cheapen themselves when taught in isolation from the arts. What something does, how it does it, how that information is shared, and how something like a new technology or device is designed and the form it takes plays just as large a role as its function.

In our approach to the arts within the RHMS STEAM program, our goal is to help students see that STEM is art and art is STEM. They are not different silos, but one and the same. While students are creating 3D models of rovers to look for life in space, the students are creating designs for what they think would function in space, but they are in turn creating works of art as they consider the design element of each component they add just as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory add "JPL" in morse code to the design of Curiosity's wheels.

Teachers plan as a group and know what is being taught and when from day to day and a yearly overview with the Alignment Document that is referred to by all teachers to be able to easily see how they can tie into other subjects.

The RHMS STEAM program's curriculum is unique as it has been planned to continually integrate the content of the science class as the guiding document while incorporating CTAE, the arts, and the other general course matter.

Teachers follow a tiered strategy when it comes to how they incorporate the other subjects. This creates a curriculum that is unique to our STEAM program and is consistently adjusting to best integrate their own content without throwing in content that is too much of a "reach" or detracts from the content being taught.

Our Connections classes have taken that a step further by integrating within the Connections classes we offer in CTAE and the arts. Our teachers model the critical thinking and collaboration of STEAM by creating memorable experiences that offer students choice as well as exposing them to a variety of content and practices.

All of our projects have the same format so students can focus on the most important components of their project-based learning experiences and not on how to figure out the parameters for each project. You can see these examples and layouts by exploring our "Project-based learning" page.

In the images below you can see how large STEAM program differentiation is integrated into the curriculum throughout the entire year across each of the three grade levels.

While Bryan County has our Bryan County Curriculum or BCC, we're not able to move any topics in any subject in any grade level to a different time of the year. This however, hasn't stopped the teachers from finding ways to work together throughout the year to best integrate into the themes of each semester. The example below walks you through the various ways scientific exploration is integrated throughout the second-semester in 6th grade.

Unique Experiences For Project Based Learning

Field trips are another central component of what we strive to provide our students. By seeing where the community partners they hear from work and do business, students can gather a more complete picture as they work to complete their PBL. These experiences are never "canned" experiences that they can do on their own but are experiences that teachers have worked on ahead of time to coordinate with the local staff to create or modify existing experiences they offer to support the PBL experience happening back on campus.

Trips for this year:

1) 6th grade Camp Jekyll 4H Center
Synopsis: After completing their project on coastal erosion, students take their skills to Jekyll Island. While students are on campus, they learn about the island's ecology, geology, and economy. Their mission is to decide whether or not the state of Georgia should allow a large business to come in and give the state a lot of additional funds to allow them to build on an area of coastline that rules don't currently allow any development on.

2) 6th grade Savannah Water Treatment & Richmond Hill Waster Water Treatment
Synopsis: Students rotate back and forth between the two facilities to see firsthand how water is prepared for their consumption and dealt with after it's used by whatever its intended purpose. After returning to school, the students use the information they learned to create and test their own filters.

3) 7th grade Tellus, Fernbank, Georgia Aquarium, MODA
Synopsis: Students prepare for their second-semester dinosaur project by taking a trip through time and art. Students learn about dinosaurs, paleontology, fossils, how these ancient creatures moved, and how those organisms that have been extinct for over 67 million years compared to the extant creatures today.
4) 7th grade Dream Home Tour

Synopsis: As students move towards the latter stages of their 7th grade Dream Home PBL, they go to local planned communities in development in the area, such as Heartwood, and take tours of model homes, see the different floor plans, and learn about how these communities are built and planned before any construction ever begins.

5) 8th grade Innovation Trip at Pratt & Whitney and other local industries
Synopsis: 8th grade STEAM Program students will visit local industries and see how they undergo their research, development, and testing processes. Students return to campus with a new toolset to help them prepare for their culminating experience as STEAM program students at RHMS, their Kickstarter project, which ends with an investor fair-style event at the 8th grade STEAM Showcase in May.