Standard 14

Students develop STEM skills and cross-cutting competencies that support workforce readiness.

Since Somerset Gables utilizes the LAFS, MAFS, and NGSSS to instruct our students, we can ensure that they are being prepared to use strong critical-thinking skills in the 21-century workforce. Through STEM disciplines, students will be mentored and encouraged to develop an interest to follow jobs in the STEM field that will allow them to develop the ability to understand the scientific method and foster the enjoyment of original discovery. Through room transformations, our educators can increase student engagement while also enriching their learning with rigorous material. When these transformations are completed, students can learn through interactive, hands-on projects in an environment similar to future work fields. These transformations can occur in any classroom to work with the writing process, sentence structure, research, develop reliable math facts recalling, and hands on science lab experiments.
This school year, our upper-grade students participated in a “Book Tasting” to explore different book genres. The classroom was transformed into a diner, and students were able to discuss, as they would in a real diner. They read a few pages of the new book, filled out a graphic organizer with essential information, and then discussed text features, summaries, and attempted to “sell” the book to other students. Our lower grade students have also participated in the science room transformations to observe the states of matter by making butter. In a math classroom, students practiced and analyzed the process of dividing fractions in a room transformed into a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. Through this activity, students can work collaboratively and are exposed to different settings similar to the real-world.
At the start of the 2018-2019 school year, our educators began receiving professional learning opportunities in the school that allowed them to understand further how to utilize these transformations. Many of our classrooms utilize these frequently, while others are still attempting to understand the concept to ensure that it remains rigorous throughout. Overall, we continue to provide our educators with opportunities to attend professional development to ensure that all our students are provided with similar learning experiences. Aside from room transformations, our students also explore careers through events, such as our annual career day. For the past two years, our speakers have been asked to explain how they utilize STEM concepts in their jobs. One of our parents, for example, a hairdresser, amazingly explained how they need to understand shapes, angles, and the relationship between those factors, to successfully provide a haircut. Then, she was able to relate how mixing specific products help her come up with a color that the client would like to dye their hair with. Our students, through career day, realized that these STEM initiatives would help them be successful workers in the future.