Sta. Cruz Elementary School was established on January 01, 1982. It was previously known as Bagong Nayon III Elementary School before it became Sta. Cruz Elementary School. Former principal Dr. Ricardo I. De Guzman spearheaded the process of renaming the school. Thankfully, it was approved by the City Council headed by Honorable Angelito C. Gatlabayan, the mayor of Antipolo City, last December 19, 2000. The current name of the school was first used during the School Year 2001-2002.

According to a former student in the class (V. Vega, personal communication, October 7, 2021), the pre-pandemic setup of Sta. Cruz Elementary School was purely offline. The classes were divided into two shifts, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The morning classes start at around 6:00 a.m. and end at around 11:30 a.m. while those in the afternoon start at around 12:30 p.m. and end at around 6:00 p.m. 

The current setup of the school is the same as every other school in the Philippines: a mix of online and offline (modular) learning. In our target grade level, 5th grade, there are 6 sections that conduct online classes, and the rest conduct modular learning. 

White (2014) mentions STEM education’s qualities in giving its students a toolbox in critical thinking skills that give them significant advantages whether or not they choose to pursue post-secondary education. Rappler (2014) news presents the facts regarding Philippine Science High School, including the school’s vision, which is aligned with the vision of this project: for the younger generation to experience quality education in sciences and math regardless of socioeconomic status. The website for the Philippine Science High School system (n.d.) provides information on the following: perks of being a scholar, notable alumni, monthly allowance rates, and guidelines on application to be a PSHS scholar. Part of being a scholar is an education that competes with the rest of the world, an immersion program designed to accustom students to real-world work in science and technology, and a non-stem program that rounds off students and complements the STEM curriculum. 

Like other initiatives that aim to provide quality and accessible education to various audiences, our project also aims to provide education to those who are in need of it and/or to those who are willing to learn but do not have enough access to the education or knowledge they need. Our project will extend the reach of these initiatives by including our target community to those who are benefitting from the said initiatives/projects. Also, our project also has a side goal of promoting STEM education and career paths to students, which is an essential step to future scientific and technological advancement.

IMPLEMENTATION

SUSTAINABILITY

Continuation

Giving of deliverables to lower batches who want to pursue a similar project. 

Conclusion & Recommendation

This project's implementation was to give elementary students a better understanding of one of their options of pursuing a higher education in a science high school (SHS) such as, in particular, Philippine Science High School (PSHS). There's a lack of information and awareness regarding SHSs among elementary students. Some students did not have the opportunity to study in PSHS because they were not aware of it.  In addition, the project promotes the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) strand. STEM is a growing branch of specialties that has a wide array of career opportunities. It has a large impact in society because as the world's technologies keep on improving, there continues to be a bigger demand for specialists in STEM. 

The problems encountered during the project included: time constraints and a lack of student participation. The former was a fault of mismanaged time wherein we fell off the planned timeline and had to compromise on the plan and activities that followed after. The latter could be seen when only a small portion of the group would attend meetings or answer our diagnostic tests. Besides that, mistakes happened in the meetings which could often be time wasted.

Thus, our recommendation for the future is to better plan ahead the project, with better care in time allotments for communications and practice lessons alongside further reminders of the set deadlines. Student participation should be incentivized to increase the participants. There's a strong emphasis in the need for practice since that could prevent a lot of mistakes in the actual sessions. In the case of actual mistakes, better attention needs to be paid in order to prevent it from happening again. Possible procedures to add would be to: make use of feedback forms so the students can assess our program and how much it has helped them and possible call to a formal face-to-face invitation if the logistics allow so. The latter can especially help a class participation.