We are pleased to announce we’ve awarded our tech grant for October to Josh Jennings, who’s a high school teacher in the Florence County School District 3! Josh helps head up their Panther CODE (Creating Opportunities for Developing Engineers) program after school, which was established to give some underrepresented students more exposure to STEM.
When it first showed up on the education scene a few years ago, the micro:bit became an instant favorite among STEAM teachers around the world thanks to its pocket-sized portability and simplicity when it came to teaching coding. Now the micro:bit V2 is ready to make its own impact on STEAM education.
From the development of our hybrid and remote offerings to exploration of new virtual coding platforms, we’ve learned a whole lot about how we can adapt STEAM learning in this new age. We now have one more offering to tell you about—a brand new Learning Everywhere kit that members of our team helped develop in a partnership with the pros from Aecern!
We can now offer the next best thing in the Google Expeditions’ AR/VR Classroom Kits! Designed to augment classroom instruction with high-end performance, the nine AR/VR kits help teachers guide students through all kinds of engaging lessons. They’re powered by the Magellan teacher tablet and include Homido viewers, student devices, and more.
We’re excited to sponsor one of the sessions, led by our friend, Jasmine Saab, on Thursday, Oct. 15! Jasmine will be discussing coding in middle school with the Cue and a “DASH” of distance learning and we’ll provide a Wonder Workshop kit to one lucky attendee! The session is for teachers, STEAM specialists, and anyone looking to innovate in distance learning.
With distance and hybrid learning continuing for most K–12 children as we start the school year, the team at Sphero has helped make things easier on everyone. They recently announced their release of two new home learning kits featuring the Sphero Mini and littleBits so that STEAM experiences can continue at home and kids can enjoy hands-on play.
Joining eight previous STEM grant recipients for the calendar year of 2020, we have presented September’s award to Michellea Millis, an administrator with the BrownSTEM afterschool program that’s based in San Antonio, TX. She works with underrepresented African-American and Latinx students to help create STEM experiences and we’re excited to award her this grant!
We added the databot kits to our offerings just a few months back and this small, cube-shaped robot is certainly now a powerhouse when it comes to STEAM education—even in the remote variety. Using its on-board sensors, which include air pressure, altitude, CO2, and humidity sensors, the device is capable of collecting a whole lot of real-world information.
For all those STEAM teachers, we have something new and exciting for you. We’re excited to let you know that we’ve finalized the addition of UBTECH’s hands-on robotics kits to our store and they are now available for purchase! There are four main kits—all of which are designed to help teachers transform STEM education.
When schools first started to shut down, we saw how STEM and MakerEd really began to take a back seat in favor of more traditional educational requirements as teachers tried to find a rhythm in remote learning. At the same time, however, we—and plenty of others—knew just how important and beneficial STEM learning could be.
