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Homestead Elementary, a Louisville Independent School District campus, created a space called the STEAMagination Lab to enrich student learning through hands-on activities.
Principal Shawn Perry said the lab provides students in kindergarten through fifth grade an opportunity to express their creativity in the areas of science, technology, engineering, arts and math.
“The response from students has been great. They really enjoy getting out there and doing something different,” Perry said.
background
After budget cuts and declining student enrollment forced the school to cut science inquiry classes, Perry decided to put the leftover materials to good use and asked the Homestead PTA to create a science enrichment space.
Perry said he and his parent volunteers and staff wrote a grant application to the Louisville Education Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to financially supporting LISD students and teachers, to get the space up and running. The foundation awarded the campus a $2,500 grant, and staff held an official grand opening in March and then opened the program to teachers.
detail
Perry said the lab activities are aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, which are curriculum standards set by the Texas Board of Education. If a class is learning about the forces of motion or about plants in biology, teachers will tailor the lab activities to those lessons.
“Some of the activities are broad and can be used across all grade levels, but there are also grade-specific activities,” Perry says.
Teachers can reserve a time to bring their class and use the space, or they can borrow various boxes to use materials from their home classrooms, he said. Typically, only one teacher signs up at a time, but sometimes an entire grade level signs up and rotates throughout the day, sometimes resulting in more than 100 students in the classroom over an eight-hour period.
The classroom can accommodate about 50 students and doubles as an indoor recess space for all grade levels, with two classes typically sharing the room during recess, Perry said.
Impact
The lab was designed to help teachers make science more accessible and interesting, whether that’s building a robot out of Legos or running electricity through a potato. It also allows students to learn in an environment outside of the classroom, which Perry says has a positive impact on their mental health and comprehension. But it’s not just science and math students who benefit from the room: teachers can use the creation area to engage their more artistic students.
“I think the key is we want to make sure we’re meeting the different needs of our students,” Perry said.
Additionally, Perry said the vibrant, bustling environment of the space fosters communication skills among students as they work individually and in teams on activities and discuss what they are learning.
“I think in the long run it will help improve achievement,” he says. “It’s still new so it’s hard to say it’s already contributed, but kids are starting to get actively interested in different areas of science and it’s encouraging them to be critical thinkers. This will help support everything we’re doing in the classroom.”
What’s next?
Perry said he hopes to make the labs required in the future, but for now they will remain an optional resource until teachers have time to try them out. The school is also sending out surveys to teachers and students to ask for feedback on their experience using the labs and what worked and what didn’t.
“We were trying to get some input on what they wanted there and the different topics they wanted us to make sure we covered,” Perry said.
Most of the materials are reusable and the program is largely self-sustaining, but Perry said the campus is open to applying for an LEF grant in the future if the program evolves and more funding is needed.
“I think the program will continue to grow and change depending on our needs. With all the different ways we have to engage kids, I think this is a great way to reach kids who might not respond in other ways,” he said.
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