Our school is located in a rural area in VA surrounded by military bases. Our school is a Title I school, meaning a majority of our students come from low socioeconomic homes. Specifically, 30% of our students qualify for free or reduced rate lunch. We have a high military family presence, which welcomes a lot of turnover in student population. Many families come to our district after they retire from the military as well as to settle down and raise their family in a quiet and small town.
STEM Lab is still considered a new special for students in grades K - 6 to attend each week.
We are just starting our third year having a STEM Lab in our building. I try to bring a variety of experiences to our students when they visit our 40 minute class from building with LEGO blocks to exploring Computer Science. With nearly 900 students in our building visiting the STEM Lab every week, we always have a wish-list.
My Project
My K - 6 STEM Students are the future and they will change the world with the skills they are learning from Computer Science in my STEM Lab. Bloxels are an educational tool that I want to add to our "toolbox" in the STEM Lab to help students build their future.
Students learn best when the experience is meaningful to them.
How do you make learning meaningful to students who spend hours of their day playing video games? You teach students how to build a video game one block at a time. Bloxels require students to build the backgrounds, characters, and game boards with their hands before uploading to a device. Students are able to use the Engineering Design Process (Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Improve, Communicate) as they build their game from beginning to end.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Richard and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
