Creative Ways to Bring More STEAM into the Classroom

August 2023 Newsletter

Summer camp students showing off their completed skateboards with pride.

Growing, Innovating, Learning, Prospering... Together!

View the Spanish translation of our newsletter here.

From the Director's Desk

Hello, Mid-Valley-

I hope you have been staying safe and well during the record-setting heat this past month. We at the Hub have been hard

at work with our summer camps, educator externships,

mobile makerspace outreach, and planning for the school year ahead. To that end, we’re evaluating our current and future projects with a close eye to program design that centers equity.

Our Hub - along with our partner hubs across the state - operates under the mission and mandate to increase access to STEM for underrepresented and underserved groups with innovative approaches. One way that we engage in this effort is through continual learning as a team.

As we are all at different places in our social justice education and understanding, we’ve spent the past year working together to build our capacity and skills to effectively take action for equity and create inclusive community involvement. A big shout out to our phenomenal DEI Consultant, Carina Buzo-Tipton, for expertly facilitating our team’s learning and growth together this year!

Thinking about the complex challenges and tremendous opportunities that lie ahead for our students, region, and world, I’d like to leave you with these words of possibility in the face of obstacles from poet and author Nayyirah Waheed, shared by Dr. Buzo-Tipton on her website:

“You do not have to be a

fire for every mountain blocking you.

You could be a water and

soft river your way to

freedom, too.”

Thanks and be well,

Image: The text used by Dr. Buzo-Tipton to facilitate the MVSCH team’s DEI workshops.

The four pillars of computational thinking.

Four Pillars of Computational Thinking

In our May newsletter, we wrote to you about our partnership with Code Fellows to help improve our region’s K-12 computer science educational landscape. Since then we have developed a computational thinking course for K-12 educators. This course is outstanding

and it is available to you and your fellow educators to sign up for.

"Computational Thinking for K-12 Educators" is a workshop designed to transform the way educators teach problem-solving across diverse academic disciplines. This approach, while rooted in computer science, extends its reach far beyond, serving as a universal problem-solving framework that can be codified into precise, step-by-step instructions (that even a computer can understand).

Through hands-on labs, practical lectures, and relevant exercises with AI tools, participants will design lesson plans, activities, and coursework that seamlessly blend computational thinking into their existing curriculum. Educators will see the relevance of this approach across a wide spectrum of subjects from math and science to history and language arts. Join us on this transformative journey to equip your students with the critical thinking skills necessary for the computational age, in any subject matter.

Program Coordinator, Chris Singer, recently completed this course and had lots of good things to say about his experience:

“This course was one of the best professional development classes I’ve ever taken!

The instructors were incredibly knowledgeable and there was a really good balance between lecture, group, and independent work. Our project for this course was to develop four lessons based on the four pillars of Computational Thinking (decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking). We were tasked with using ChatGPT to help craft the lessons and we had an hour of our final session to share all of the lessons with each other.

I can’t say enough good things about this course and as an instructor-in-training for this course, I also can’t wait to share this with teachers in our region.”

BELOW ARE MORE DETAILS AND INSTRUCTIONS TO SIGN UP FOR THE COURSE:

At this time, the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub has funding available to pay for your course. Bernadette Ortiz-Brewster will get you enrolled in the courses and invoice the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub.

Please fill out this Google Form - Chris Singer and/or Bernadette Ortiz-Brewster will get back to you within 24-48 hours.

If you have any questions or wish to learn about further Code Fellows opportunities, please contact Chris Singer.

News From the Hub

Making Skateboards at Summer Camp

Mid-Valley middle schoolers are getting rad

in the MILL! As a part of our choose-your-own STEAM Adventure summer camps this year, eight middle school students built their own skateboard deck from scratch!

Keep Reading

Chemistry Camps at Ophelia's Place

The Mobile Makerspace teamed up with partners, Ophelia's Place, in Albany to organize a chemistry-focused STEAM camp for local middle school girls.

Learn more

10 STEAM Activities for Summer Learning

Learning doesn’t have to stop once your student leaves the classroom. Here are 10 (inexpensive) STEAM activities your student can do at home, in the yard,

and in the community.

Keep Reading

Partner Spotlight

We are pleased to announce that the Benton Community Foundation has awarded our Mid-Valley Hub as the recipient of their Guthrie Millsap Youth Employment Initiative.

This four-year grant award will expand the reach of career exploration for youth in Benton County. We look forward to engaging community partners including business and industry in this new grant program.

Special thanks to BCF for investing in the future of youth in our region!

Help support the Hub and our programming.

When you make a gift to the Mid-Valley STEM-CTE Hub Fund through the LBCC Foundation you help ensure the development of critical STEM-CTE education in our region including hands-on career exploration opportunities for youth.

Please consider making a donation today.

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