STEAM Day at Mountain Valley School

​   HEART of Saguache/KV has created an entrepreneurship class for MVS for middle and high school but unfortunately this school year, COVID-19 disruptions meant the class was not able to be put in the schedule for this year. To make up for that HEART applied for a Sales Tax Grant and was awarded $5000.00 from the Saguache County Commissioners to purchase STEAM kits for every student. STEAM is an acronym for the disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math.

​   The idea behind STEAM kits is that many students learn through better and make connections through creative hands-on projects. The STEAM kits come with clear instructions for students to follow and students build something that actually works in the end. The idea is learning through doing in a way that builds confidence and inspiration. With teacher input we selected 10 different STEAM kits to offer as options for students who each filled out a form to choose their option. We also ordered some extra kits for teachers.

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    Students chose from Light-Up Wire Art, Animation Machine, Glow Lab, Vortex Lab, Bubble Machine, Electrochemistry Lab, Headphones, Light-Up Speaker, Light-Chasing Robot or the Fire Lab kits. Letting students choose their own kit was important to us as we always want to hear student voices, preferences and opinions before we create programs for them.  Students overwhelmingly selected the Light-Up Wire Art kit followed closely by the Light-Up Speaker. 
    
​   The school created a STEAM day for both Middle School and High School and students spent the afternoon working on their projects. HEART purchased healthy snacks out of the grant money. Student responses were positive, they enjoyed building something and they all enjoyed hanging out with their friends while doing it. Learning in this manner is appealing to many students because it doesn’t feel like ‘school’. Hands on learning and problem solving allows students to think outside the box and use their brains in a different way to be innovative and creative in ways that will help them succeed outside of school in real life scenarios. 

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