In the beginning of the school year, sixth-grade students engage in a unique and hands-on activity to emphasize the importance of providing detailed instructions. This involves the classic task of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. By instructing them to articulate each step involved in the process, we not only teach them the significance of clarity and precision in communication but also integrate fundamental elements of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education. This seemingly simple task requires the students to think critically about the sequential order of steps, fostering skills in logical thinking and problem-solving. Furthermore, as they collaborate with classmates to compare and refine their instructions, they delve into the collaborative aspect of STEAM, enhancing teamwork and communication skills. The activity not only serves as a fun and relatable way to introduce the significance of detailed instructions but also lays the foundation for the broader interdisciplinary skills essential for success in STEAM-related fields.

To introduce sixth-grade students to the learner profile and emphasize the importance of the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity), we have designed an engaging challenge. Students will participate in a competition where they are tasked with creating the best presentation that embodies the principles of the 4Cs. This challenge not only serves as an exciting and interactive introduction to these foundational concepts but also encourages students to apply these skills in a real-world context. As they craft their presentations, students will need to employ critical thinking to organize their thoughts, communicate effectively to convey their ideas, collaborate with their peers for diverse perspectives, and infuse creativity into their delivery. This hands-on challenge is designed to instill these essential skills early on, setting the stage for a dynamic and learner-focused academic journey throughout the year. 

During the introduction of the STEAM Expectations at SEMS, we seamlessly integrated Project-Based Learning (PBL) to engage students in real-world problem-solving. Focusing on the driving question of "How to create and maintain a successful pumpkin patch at Honey Ridge Agricenter, marketing our products to consumers attending the Honey Ridge fall festival?", our students delved into the intricacies of the design process, following directions, and embodying the learner profile of the 4Cs (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity). Throughout this PBL, students not only gained a comprehensive understanding of how pumpkins grow and the cultivation process but also explored distinguishing features between weeds and pumpkin vines. They investigated why orange bulldog pumpkins are unique to our area and applied measurement skills to create pumpkin edible cookie dough, contributing to the development of a cookbook. Utilizing pumpkins for hands-on learning, students measured circumferences, assessed weight for density considerations, and formulated ratios based on collected data. Moreover, they extended their culinary skills by providing our local community with pumpkin puree, pumpkin bread, and seeds during the Honey Ridge Fall festival, showcasing a holistic integration of STEAM principles in a real-world context. 

In the 7th grade at SEMS, our STEAM program kicks off by laying a solid foundation through a comprehensive review of the design process and the essential 4Cs—Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity. This preparatory phase serves as a critical refresher for students, ensuring they have a clear understanding of these fundamental principles that underpin STEAM learning. By revisiting the design process, students are equipped with the skills necessary to approach challenges methodically and innovatively. Simultaneously, emphasizing the 4Cs fosters a collaborative and communicative environment, promoting critical thinking and creative problem-solving. Once this groundwork is in place, our 7th graders seamlessly transition into the heart of STEAM education—Project-Based Learning (PBL). This approach allows them to apply their acquired knowledge and skills to real-world challenges, providing a dynamic and engaging learning experience. 

As the students actively engage in the stock market game within their social studies class at SEMS, they simultaneously embark on an intriguing journey of designing a sustainable farm on the Honey Ridge Agricenter property. Their focus extends beyond the virtual realm of financial markets to the practical application of sustainable agriculture principles. Through meticulous research, students explore school-appropriate farming practices, encompassing both crops and livestock that are both sustainable and profitable in the unique context of southeast Georgia. Collaborative discussions with partners become a vital component as they share insights gained from individual research and their recent visit to Honey Ridge Agricenter. The students are tasked with collectively determining the optimal crops and animals to raise, along with allocating the appropriate acreage for each farming type. Working as a group, they make critical decisions about the farm's composition and allocate specific areas for each chosen crop or animal. The culmination of these discussions and decisions is reflected in the design of a rough draft within their STEAM journals, fostering creativity and strategic planning in their pursuit of a sustainable and productive farm.

As the stock market game concluded, seventh-grade students transitioned seamlessly into the next phase of their project. With their rough drafts of farm plans finalized, anticipation mounted for the upcoming trip to Honey Ridge Agricenter. In the meantime, students immersed themselves in the creation of tri-fold boards, meticulously detailing their stock market information. These visual aids, rich with data and insights gained from the game, serve as dynamic tools for presenting their knowledge to the community and parents eager to witness the culmination of this unique project. The tri-fold boards not only showcase the students' understanding of financial concepts but also represent a bridge between the virtual world of the stock market game and the real-world application of agricultural planning, preparing them for an engaging presentation that brings their multifaceted learning journey to life.

Before progressing with the development of our farm designs, a crucial step awaits us – a visit to Honey Ridge Agriculture. This visit is essential to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current layout of the land before we proceed with the finalization of our farm plans. The intricate details of the terrain, soil composition, and existing features of the landscape are pivotal in crafting effective and sustainable designs. By actively engaging with Honey Ridge Agriculture and assessing the unique characteristics of the land firsthand, we can tailor our plans to maximize efficiency, productivity, and environmental sustainability. This preliminary inspection serves as the foundation for our farm development endeavors, ensuring that our designs align seamlessly with the natural attributes of the Honey Ridge Agriculture property.

8th Grade 

For our 8th-grade students at SEMS, our STEAM curriculum commences by revisiting the core elements of the design process and reinforcing the significance of the 4Cs—Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity. This review phase aims to ensure a strong grasp of these foundational principles, essential for navigating the complexities of STEAM education. By refreshing their understanding of the design process, students are better prepared to approach challenges systematically and with innovation. Simultaneously, the emphasis on the 4Cs cultivates a collaborative and communicative atmosphere, fostering critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. This deliberate groundwork sets the stage for the focal point of 8th-grade STEAM education—the immersive experience of Project-Based Learning (PBL). This approach empowers students to apply their acquired knowledge and skills to authentic, real-world challenges, creating a dynamic and engaging educational journey. 

The Be The Spark PBL worked to give students a great Social Emotional Learning experience by teaching them the difference between Sympathy and Empathy. To help students understand the difference between the two, students were part of multiple challenges that people with disabilities, such as visual impairment, dyslexia, amputation, speech impediments, and difficulties with fine motor skills, face.

To help students understand how much power is required to do everyday things, students participated in a Human Horsepower activity. Students completed this activity by recording the time that it takes to run up the football stadium stairs. After multiple trials from many groups, students came back to the classroom to calculate how much power they could generate using multi-step math equations. Students used this data to determine how many students it would take to do something as simple as run a microwave to cook a macaroni bowl. This gave students a realistic understanding of how energy impacts our daily lives. 

After students had grasped the concept of how power works, they were tasked with researching different Renewable and Alternative Energy Sources that could be beneficial to our community and area using their geographical knowledge from Georgia Studies classes. Eighth-grade students teamed up with their peers to not only research other energy sources, but to create a product to assist sixth-grade teachers and students with renewable energy sources using Canva. Students had full creative freedom while creating their products. 

Making the connection to how we get our electricity (electrical energy) and how we use it was made easy because students researched where our energy comes from for the Canva Challenge and they saw how much energy was needed to do something small during the Human Horsepower activity. Students then began learning how we get our power from Georgia Power Company. Our students visited Honey Ridge Agricenter to meet with GA Power. GA Power came to speak with students and explain how they determine how much power we use each month by providing lessons on how to read different power meters and what the readings mean. 

Eighth-grade students used their knowledge of electrical energy and circuits to create Paper Circuit Christmas Cards. 

Moving forward, eighth-grade students will use the collected data from the power meters at HRA to decide how they can help decrease our energy consumption at HRA or produce a product/device that would be useful at HRA that uses alternative or renewable energy sources. 

Past Years!

Grade Level Focus to support the overlying Question:

How can 6th grade ensure and sustain quality water and soil systems?

Standards Supported:

• Weather Events such as hurricanes

• Latitude and Longitude

• Plotting 

• Gravity

• Water Quality 

• Soil Erosion 

• Renewable Resource (Water)

• Water Cycle

As students worked on their 4Cs videos, it provided the teachers time in the classroom to teach some standards that would lead the students into our first STEA2M Extension project on Hurricanes.  In the classroom, the science teachers watched a video that provided an introduction to Hurricanes.  The Language Arts teachers incorporated reading materials on hurricanes and current hurricane events.  The social studies teacher taught latitude and longitude which assisted the math teacher as they began to plot the 2021 Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.  

After the students had an understanding of hurricanes, we introduced a problem that they were to build a house that could withstand hurricane-force winds.  As the students worked on this project, we had several visitors from the community come to our school and discuss a variety of topics with our students. We had a hurricane management speaker, an Army Corp engineer, and a builder speak with the students providing them with a variety of background knowledge as they worked through the Design Process.  

Students tested the strength of their hurricane-windproof houses by using a fan at different wind speeds. The fan settings represented category 1-3 hurricane-force wind speeds. During this testing phase, students were required to make observations and were allowed to analyze and redesign. Once the corrections were made, they began testing their houses using a stronger fan provided by SERVpro.  We calculated the amount of seconds the house could stand before it moved due to the wind.  The winning houses from each team are now in the process of building their house as other students on their team are creating the best barrier to protect the house from storm surges.  

Our STEA2M Extension has allowed our 6th-grade students to have more opportunities.  We have five different opportunities that are provided to our students.   We have two math teachers working with a group of students to create and sell a product, a group focusing on astronomy with Space Club and the winners of the windproof house redesign their house with wood, while the other students are creating a barrier to protect the home from storm surge.  After testing the barriers the students will look at how the storm surge can change the environment by focusing on the lower elevated areas like ponds.  They will research how all ponds are affected by runoff and they will create an aquifer to see if they can make any changes to our pond water at Honey Ridge Agricenter.  As the students learn about aquifers in the science classroom we will focus on making an aquifer to test at Honey Ridge for our third visit.  

Overarching SEMS STEA2M Question:

How do relationships within structures and systems affect or create change?

Grade Level Focus to support the overlying Question:

How can 7th grade maintain balance among organisms to sustain growth?    

Standards Supported:

• Investigate the diversity of living organisms

• systems interact to maintain the basic needs of organisms

• Soil Testing

• Chemical Effects

• Difference in Fertilizer and Composting

• Chemical breakdown of the Compost

• Human Body System

• DNA

Students started this year by reviewing the Design Process by writing the exact directions to make a specific image with legos. This allowed the students to be creative in designing a Lego image with random Legos and learning the purpose of writing clear instructions for others to follow. Unfortunately, this came to an end because students were unable to work in groups at the beginning of the year.  Therefore, we had a digital Lego lesson that allowed students to design their own Lego inspiration characteristics to write about and share.  Although group work came to a stop our STEA2M Extension continued as nothing was happening.

As we continued no group work the entire school was given a music video challenge that incorporated the 4Cs in the lyrics. As they worked on the lyrics they communicated through technology to complete this task.  When it was time to film the videos the students were able to get back with their group partners. 

As we moved into our focus for this year they started by writing a letter to a family member or friend asking for a soil sample to collect for school.  As the soil samples were mailed back to the students we placed a map of the United States in the hallway for the students to hang the soil collected near the state it came from. This allowed the students to compare the soil in different areas of the United States.  

As we were receiving the soil samples the students were using the Design Process to create a planter with ten sections that have an area of 880 inches.  They were to create this planter with a budget of $40.  As the STEA2M Coach was gathering the materials they were to decide, through research, the fertilizer that they would like to use to grow their vegetables. During this project, we have parents who have assisted our students in this project by providing materials and cutting wood.  As they worked on building the planters we had COR Composting come introduce the students to composting.

As our vegetables are growing in the planters our students are working on a variety of projects.  The majority of the students are working on identifying how different diseases affect the human body, while two groups are focusing on composting and vegetation that is struggling on the baseball field. The composting group is getting some guidance from a high school student at the Effingham County Career Academy who has worked on composting at their school.  This will assist in getting them started with the tumblers that we have for composting.  The vegetation group has received the soil testing results and is working on researching those results to solve the problem.  

Overarching SEMS STEA2M Question:

How do relationships within structures and systems affect or create change?

Grade Level Focus to support the overlying Question:

How can the 8th grade conserve structures and systems to encourage the production of viable resources?    

Standards Supported:

• Stored Elastic Energy

• Kinetic Energy

• Potential Energy

• Conservation

• Recycling & Reusing

• Heat Transfer

• Chemistry

• Physics

Although these students are familiar with the Design Process, it must be reviewed at the beginning of the year.  The eighth grade designed a Spaghetti Soapbox Derby that reinforced the Design Process.  The vocabulary utilized in this lesson was a prerequisite to the standards taught in the science classroom.  Unfortunately, this lesson was not completed due to the cancellation of group activities at the beginning of the school year.  

This struggle did not stop us from having students work with technology to create tangrams as we introduced a way to have students enhance their understanding of the 4Cs by designing a music video as a whole school challenge.  They work collaboratively through technology until released to work in groups to film the music video.  

The 4Cs music video was submitted leading us to the next task, which focused on conservation as the students designed a catapult from recycling materials.  As they tested the catapults the students recorded their data for the regions a marshmallow landed in on the Georgia map.  This allowed them to incorporate the regions as a review while testing the catapults for accuracy.  The students used their knowledge from creating a catapult to creating a strap to a slingshot to launch pumpkins at Honey Ridge Agricenter.  

As we were moving toward the Christmas holidays the students were given the challenge to design and create a Christmas ornament from recycled materials.  This challenge allowed the students to think and use recycled material before they had Atlantic Waste present.  The students also collected data on the amount of trash that was thrown away every day from the whole team at lunch to begin having them think about why this data might be important.  

Atlantic Waste focused on our region during this presentation, so our students researched other countries' recycling programs for comparison.  As they completed this research to extend this knowledge they had a person who lives in Germany create a video that explained the recycling in their area.  Then students discussed what they discovered during the research process.  

All students in the eighth grade were exposed to recycling, but we surveyed the students to find the students who were interested in focusing on a recycling program.  These students are meeting with the Language Arts teachers on the team while the other students are participating in other activities.  The other students are designing bouncy balls, plastic bag art, and recycling insulation for a house. We have also provided an opportunity for a group to focus on fishery.  The fishery group is working to make a habitat for the catfish that were added to the Honey Ridge Ponds this year.