West Sedona School hosted its Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and Community Partner “Meet-and-Greet” in the school library on the afternoon of Wednesday, Aug. 28.
The meeting kicked off the STEM instructional year at WSS in collaboration with a number of nonprofit organizations and government bodies including the city of Sedona, the U.S. Forest Service, Friends of the Forest and Oak Creek Watershed Council. According to teacher Deb Sanders, WSS is partnering with outside organizations to enrich the students’ learning from preschool through fifth grade by providing hands-on activities that connect classroom lessons to real-world applications.
“Four years ago, we were the recipients of a [Northern Arizona University]-APS STEM grant,” Sanders said. “That ran out last year, but we developed some goals that had to do with moving forward our STEM programs in every class from preschool all the way through fifth grade by working with the [Boston] Museum of Science and their kits called ‘Engineering is Elementary.’”
“Deb is instrumental in helping us to keep this alive and well,” WSS Principal Alisa Stieg said. “It is because of Deb and her leadership and her connections with the community that we are able to continue stewarding the whole STEM initiative to the degree that we are, because my focus and assignment is to work on literacy.”
WSS will showcase these projects during two parent celebration nights, one in the fall and another in the spring.
“We want parents to understand what their children are learning,” Sanders said. “When kids come home talking about the engineering design process, parents will know it’s more than just a school project. It’s a way of thinking that empowers them to contribute to their community.”
The EIE kits have different topics for each grade level. Preschool students are taught about noisemakers and how noise affects animals, kindergarten students about trash collectors, first-grade students about simple machines and bridges, second-grade students about hand pollinators, third-grade students about water, fourth-grade students about solar and wind energy and fifth grade students about dark skies and designing parachutes.
“To teach them as they grow up, to be more conscious of light that’s not needed,” Astronomers of the Verde Valley president Richard Bohner said was his goal for collaborating with the school. ”You don’t need light shining above billboards, or shining into other people’s houses and that. So to be conscious of light and conservation … It’s to teach the kids that as they grow up, that this should become a habit, not waste energy and not use light wastefully.”
The city of Sedona, will require all lighting to be dark sky compliant by Jan. 1, 2028, to minimize light pollution, and the fifth grade project encourages students to think creatively and sustainably.
“The kids will design lighting fixtures using materials like paper plates and styrofoam cups,” Bohner said. “We’ll judge them on how well they meet dark sky requirements.”
“Then the city comes in, critiques their prototype,” Sanders said. “Then the child has to go back to their group and revise based on their critique, to have a new and improved fixture based on the feedback.”
In another project, students will design a hand pollinator, then collaborate with the Forest Service in the Village of Oak Creek to use those hand pollinators in community gardens. USFS Conservation Education Coordinator Mathew Boehm said his goal for the program was “to enhance the environmental education and the opportunities these kids have to kind of get out in nature and experience nature and to learn about the different things and how the world works.”
