Students range from 14-18 and many are learning English as a second language. Every day, teen moms and babies come to school. Young women can start at our school while they are expecting and continue after their baby is born. The school is located in a building with many social service programs for the young families. Students continue with their academic education as well as learning parenting skills, healthy baby strategies, and useful community resources (including jobs and money management). Our library, created in 2014, includes books and electronic resources for academics as well as pleasure reading for teenagers. We are also including a collection of infant and toddler books so teen moms will be able to read to the little ones. Our students have very busy lives filled with school, homework, jobs and family responsibilities of caring full time for an infant! When they come to school, they are eager to learn both academic work and parenting skills.
Our young moms have participated in Hour of Code and are very interested in hands-on science projects. This year several students asked if we could build more projects. They did some research and want to try some Snap Circuit projects. They also liked the idea of working with Ozbot robot projects. They read about the products. Then a small group decided which items would be most educational (and interesting) to peers. They have discussed how working on these projects will help them prepare for the future. As parents they also want to be able to help their little ones in school science projects someday!
In Their Own Words
We want to learn more about engineering and coding! These kits will help us and give us more opportunity. We will be able to build and work together. Then we can teach our kids about these ideas when they get older. I want to learn about robots because soon they will be everywhere in our lives. -Adamaria
I know other schools do not have a chance to use these kits. I will help with organizing the materials, supervising clean up, and helping with a display of our work. I think we can show others how these kits work & then let them try dong the projects too. -Lyka
Our children build with blocks now. When we learn this complicated circuit kit, we can teach our partners because not every school will have these kits and these learning activities.
When we study in class sometimes it is hard to listen all the time. These hands on kits will be interesting AND educational. -Lyka
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