The Hechinger Report – Chris Berdik
“Diagrams of simple machines — a pulley, an inclined plane, a lever — appeared on the massive whiteboard of a school STEAM lab (STEM subjects plus Art) in South Fayette, a fast-growing suburb of Pittsburgh. Two dozen fifth graders, split into teams of four, busily sketched designs for “Rube Goldberg machines” that would turn on and off lights or feed the lab’s pet fish. No single child designed a complete machine. Instead, each team member spent a few minutes sketching out how one part — a marble run, say, or a Lego Robotics kicking foot — would operate within the machine. Then they switched papers and the next person added onto the design with another part. There are two other STEAM labs in this school for third, fourth and fifth graders, which South Fayette opened in 2013. They’re in the center of each floor, with regular classrooms on either side, a layout that reflects a philosophy transforming the entire district. In the past five years, South Fayette has leveraged grant funding, new-school construction and creative scheduling to give nearly 3,000 kids, from kindergarten through 12th grade, dedicated spaces for hands-on projects — coding, 3-D printing, computer-aided design and robotics — as part of their regular curriculum. The STEAM labs, STEAM coordinators and technology education teachers are part of a district-wide embrace of “computational thinking.”.”(more)