What is STEAM?
STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.
- A genuine STEAM program is inquiry-based and emphasizes critical thinking, reasoning, collaboration, investigation, and creativity.
- STEAM lessons are guided by the engineering design process - identifying problems and creating solutions.
- STEAM lessons provide an environment in which students think, ask, collaborate, and make decisions as a team.
- When fully developed, STEAM projects focus on real world needs – economic, environmental, and social – and seek creative, practical solutions to those needs.
- Students learn that there can be multiple right answers and that failure is often part of the process to finding answers.
What does STEAM look like at RSM Christian School?
Teachers team up with our technology curriculum provider, Beyond Technology Education, to provide students at all grade levels with inquiry-based STEAM projects.
Students collaborate, create, design, succeed, fail, and go back to the drawing board to re-think deeply and try, try again! After they have investigated on their own and made conclusions, students then take their results to the technology lab where they incorporate what they have learned into spreadsheets, databases, graphics, and more. Language arts is a key element of this process as students focus on the best ways to communicate their processes and their outcomes.
Beyond Technology Education – K through 5th grade:
- Focus on word processing, spreadsheets, databases, graphics, internet, multimedia, desktop publishing
- Unique lesson plans integrating classroom curriculum and STEAM
- Introduction to coding for 2nd – 5th grades
Creating Change, Developing Solutions – 6th grade
- challenges students to identify and research a pressing social issue
- create a technology-infused campaign seeking to raise awareness
- pose solutions
Students develop online research skills, learn basic coding skills, practice video production and editing, and learn to present their original content in a dynamic, digitally focused context.
CEO Challenge – 7th & 8th grades
Students apply technology skills to develop a fictitious business and create a successful start-up company, developing real-world business skills.
