Article by: Leslie Sanders
Dr. Tomas Ramirez is planning to start a new program for our school in early November. This program is called the S.T.E.A.M. Saturday School. S.T.E.A.M means Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. The purpose is to support the superintendent’s priorities in numerous, literary, and social/emotional aspects. This program supports the vision of the local school’s governing team which is for W.R. Coile Middle School to become a S.T.E.A.M. focused school.
This program is from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It is a 20 week program consisting of 4 hours per Saturday. There will be 10 teachers working in Coile, 5 from Coile and 5 student teachers from UGA. Every student in the program will have 2 hours of S.T.E.M. and the other 2 hours will be for S.T.E.A.M. For the S.T.E.A.M. part, students can choose from creative writing, modern dance, chess, and debate. Some projects that will be included in the program are, a CSI type of camp, working with heavy metals, and learning how to better the water quality in Athens.
The goal for the S.T.E.A.M. Saturday School is to have at least 150 students take part in the academy. Dr. Ramirez wants teachers to integrate math, science, and engineering all together while teaching. This program is project based learning and is to give students more time to learn and increase academic excellence in our school. It also allows diversity with what students are interested in, in the arts category of the program. Transportation will be included but all in all, it should be entertaining and fun for students.
Currently, there may be changes dealing with this program so stay tuned.