Piedmont Middle School Operation Pirate STEAMship Grant Proposal

Because opportunities for learning are ubiquitous and accessible on every Internet-connected device, students who know more than others no longer have a competitive advantage....What matters today, however, is not how much our students know, but what they can do with what they know . . ..Graduates who will get and keep good jobs in the new global economy and contribute solutions to the world’s most pressing problems ... will be creative problem-solvers who will generate improvements in existing products, processes, and services, as well as invent new ones. -Tony Wagner, 8/14/2012

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/08/14/01wagner.h32.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mrss

Operation Pirate STEAMship Program Rationale and Description

Seeking to replicate the successes of both formal experience-driven problem-based STEAM curricula as well as the successes of informal innovation-based and design-driven individual and collaborative explorations such as the maker movement (as described via sites like https://diy.org/skills and personal projects http://educationismylife.com/designing-20-time-in-education/ ), this grant will fund Operation Pirate STEAMship, a multi-faceted school-wide Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts- and Math integration, exploration, and innovation program which includes an at-risk science remediation and enrichment day camp slated for Summer 2014. By providing highly-motivational real-world STEAM research and building materials along with training in their educational uses, this program will gently structure the integration of STEAM into multiple areas of student learning, from formal STEAM lessons to personal STEAM innovation projects.

The Operation Pirate STEAMship prototype website http://piratesteamship.cmswiki.wikispaces.net explains Operation Pirate Steamship to students this way:

Operation Pirate STEAMship provides STEAM integration, remediation, augmentation and amplification across many facets of Piedmont student's learning experiences: from curriculum-driven classroom lessons to extracurricular activities, clubs, summer camp, and field trips.

Operation Pirate STEAMship includes these features:

1.     Mobile Pirate STEAMship carts and other STEAM learning materials for club, classroom, and individual check out.

2.     Operation STEAMship Pilot- an innovative STEAM-infused personal project of the student's own design culminating in a science fair-type exhibition of research and invention called the STEAMship Regatta.

3.     CampSummerSTEAM-  4 weeks of hands-on STEAM explorations and field trips! Full STEAM Ahead!

Buzzwords are handles for holding onto nebulous ideas: they give form and substance to the shapeless and invisible.  Unfortunately, in sealing an idea up into a buzzword, segments are invariably left out, leaving some facets hidden from possible connections. So it has been with the term “STEM”.  Since the coining of the term, educators have been able to see STEM as a distinct facet of a complete education that needed more attention (the "E" part being previously nearly invisible to K12 educators) but increased visibility has come at the price of segregation. This grant seeks to rectify that error by integrating STEAM back into the natural fabric of learning in all subjects.

Adding "A" to STEM created STEAM, an apt acronym because it re-nebulizes STEM. It floats science, technology, engineering and mathematics up through the seams of its buzzword packaging and back into to the larger world where it had previously been thought of as inaccessible and foreign.  That important letter "A" curls STEAM up through the box of STEM, linking STEM back up with arts, history, entertainment, creativity, and life. So it was in the example of medical researchers who turned to a comic book artist’s drawings to save lives when scientific knowledge alone could not.

( http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/29/166154251/wham-doctor-tries-comic-book-to-boost-trauma-drug ).

Our students and teachers still do not fully see the ways that STEAM could be integrated into their global learning because they do not have the proper tools for that integration.  By giving students and teachers immediate access to the most cutting edge and interesting tools of the STEAM trade, and by giving them training and time to tinker, their toolboxes are expanded and thinking subtly shifts to include more STEAM as steam becomes visible in the form of the materials and experiences provided in this grant. This grant capitalizes upon a positive angle of the old adage, “If you have only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Using the acronym “STEAM” rather than “STEM” ensures that our school sees the “hammer” of STEAM” as a useful multi-tool for learning many subjects many ways. It is the all purpose hammer and in naming it it can be turned to again and again. In addition, The STEAMship acronym fixes the problem of STEAM being seen as being unrelated to humanities other disciplines.

Today’s students of all socioeconomic levels suffer from lack of fertile thinking time and creation space. Tinkering provides fertile ground for STEAM skills development yet unfortunately, student life has gotten progressively more hectic and chaotic than in the days when STEAM superstars like Richard Feynman could spend their afternoons pondering ants in the grass, tinkering with radio parts, and picking locks. In the past STEAM-based tinkering occurred informally but has to be scheduled for today's students who, in the best cases, move directly from school day to the long commutes to their organized extra-curricular activities, tutoring sessions, and other carefully planned and structured resume--builders. In the worst cases, non-school hours are eaten up with adult-level family responsibilities or in working mind-numbing off-the-books night jobs. Moreover, high stakes competition and economic uncertainty has turned college from an enticing option for the academically-inclined to what Clay Shirkey terms a “hostage situation”. If the specter of student debt in higher education is causing students to eschew liberal arts majors these days and into the future, then it becomes incumbent upon the earlier schooling years to provide those artistic and holistic connections that tomorrow's scientists, mathematicians, and engineers will use to enrich, deepen, and inspire their work.  

Our school is not unique in its need for the reintegration of STEAM.  The need is great in most schools. In fact, our tradition of international baccalaureate, arts-infused, open and inquiry-based education puts us ahead of the game. Please do not see our successes as a reason NOT to award Piedmont this grant opportunity. Indeed, this grant will be well-spent on Piedmont because we are uniquely poised to ensure the success of such reintegration and to create a model others can copy. Despite our high poverty numbers and our title one eligibility without title one funding, we have a long history of being trailblazers, of creating the mold that others copy. Our teachers are brilliant, tireless, and dedicated to STEAM; our students are motivated and gifted; and our record of accolades and achievements bears out that we actually do what we say. We are fiercely successful, winning time and again at a game in which most urban schools with our demographics do not even hope to participate. We are Lego Robotics Club competitors and are National Science Olympiad winners. Our science and math teachers are a strong team, aided by equally strong arts and humanities faculty. Our background in IB means we are also committed to holistic education on the global forefront. We have recently been named Middle School of the Year by the National Association of Middle School Principals.

As far as technology, this project is named Operation Pirate STEAMship not just because our school mascot is a pirate, but also because today's technology makes it easy to access the ideas of others in a form of positive piracy best typified by the positive hacking culture and exemplified in terms such as “lifehack” or “hackschooling”. We can teach students that hacking can be a positive form of creative innovation and learning tool personalization. It should make things better not worse. It should not leave a stain for others to clean up. Enlightened hacking is not crime or making viruses in a basement, it is a STEAM-infused mindset toward innovation to make life healthier and happier. When coupled with strong character and adult guidance, the hack mindset is one uniquely suited in today’s tech-rich climate to enhance our students’ learning and lives now and into the future. All of us who seek truth are now pirates of these open internet knowledge-ways, not plundering limited resources but sharing and improving them.

Back when curiosity was constrained by the size of the local library shelves, many an inquisitive youngster wished for an instant way to have questions answered. That wish has been granted by today’s technology. We just have to show our students how to access it and we need to give them the time and tools to fully exploit its potential. By providing them motivating materials such as iPads, Rasperry Pi, a basic 3Dprinter and also by guiding them toward the best STEAM apps, maker websites, we provide a parallel guidance, engaging with students at their level with tech while also giving them room to persue the path to mastery of STEAM topics that most interest them.  The Pirate STEAMship program allows provides training wheels for the students just getting started (Camp SummerSTEAM, for example) while also allowing the high fliers to take off (STEAMship Pilot, for example).

Some people believe that today's students are categorically different than the older generations were. That is untrue: we are the same; it is just that adults are stuck in some habits of thought and action that prevent us from embracing the possibilities of new concepts as readily as younger people can. This difference is at the heart of a great conflict in education today. Grown-ups are frustrated that they are not able to say with certainty what is essential for students to know while students are frustrated that adults are fixated on needing a definite answer to that question before changing the education status quo. Teaching students to think has always been a role of education, it just used to be an accidental by-product of teaching facts. The advent of mobile Wi-Fi devices is making the need for argument over what is essential less and less important as the knowledge of the world is instantly accessible. This grant aims to exploit that via the purchase of  iPads to be used year-round for lessons, research and creation. With easy access to information via the internet and motivating apps, students can focus on 21^st century skills development designing, creating and sharing with STEAM.

The lack of a universally agreed-upon canon of knowledge and skills that students will need in the future is just part of the reason school leadership and teachers themselves are hesitant to dive full-force into innovative STEAM education. Canon aside, the rapidly advancing pace of STEAM innovation is rendering even traditionally well-versed teachers underprepared in numerous areas.  Few middle school teachers are experts in computer programming, electronics or and the latest customizable affordable STEAM products such as Ardruino and Raspberry Pi and so do not think to employ them in lessons. Yet these products are not only appropriate for the middle school level because of their ease, they are phenomenally motivating ways for students, allowing them to bring their school curriculum to real life via their own imaginations.

The beauty of the Operation Pirate STEAMship program is that in its adoption of a bottom-up tinkering philosophy, it sidesteps the problem of teacher expertise and curriculuar mandates lagging behind the current pace of innovation, and puts the latest technology and information into the hands of learners years before a top-down program ever could. By balancing pre-written STEAM lessons and age-appropriate materials with open-ended tech tools, DIY-type maker opportunities and tinker time and exploratory scaffolding, this program assures that students can learn alongside teachers in an atmosphere of shared inquiry advancing together with no one being held back.  With iPads providing quick access to amateurs and experts via global public forums and interest groups, teachers are freed from the pressure of needing to be expert in every new technology before allowing children to explore. 

The importance of the flexibility built into the many facets of Operation Pirate STEAMship should not be overlooked. By offering numerous opportunities for STEAM to be integrated into formal and informal learning and at all levels of academic expertise and personal interest, this program’s success does not hinge on any one pedagogy, device, or type of learner. This grant provides STEAM materials and experiences for the artistic fashion designer, for the logical programmer, for the creative engineer, for the school-weary skeptic, for those who refuse to be defined, and, above all for those who are not yet sure where they fit into in the STEAM schema. Apart from full-class instruction and club collaborations, students will also be given the space and freedom to tinker on projects of their own design. The individual aspect of the personal project is an essential tool for innovation. Much is made of collaboration in today's environment, however," the more innovative an idea that a person has, the less likely that someone can help the innovator. In fact, outside help often dilutes the innovative idea." ( Adam Renfro http://gettingsmart.com/cms/blog/2012/09/atmosphere-innovation-whats-your-20-project/ )

Operation Pirate STEAMship gives students the time, space, materials, and conditions necessary to become STEAM practitioners and innovators right now.

Camp SummerSTEAM Program Specifics

The Camp SummerSTEAM piece of this grant is a cost effective idea that goes further than a one-time funded summer remediation and enrichment camp normally would. We will use 6th and 7th grade data to identify the rising 8th graders most at risk of failing the North Carolina Science End Of Grade test. Camp SummerSTEAM’s manifest goal is 100% pass rate on the 8th grade End of Grade Science exam. This will be accomplished by building capacity in our most at risk students via the high-interest active and experiential learning laid out in the table below.  The program also fulfills tangential goals of:

• Community enhancement/preservation (keeping rivers and greenways clean) through hands-on experience-based embedded content
• Curricular development and training for both summer and school year teachers. Materials and lessons developed and tested during Camp SummerSTEAM by the camp faculty will be shared with  the larger Science and Math professional learning communities during the school year.
• Improvement in student school-year confidence through team-building, mentoring, and pre-teaching

Tentative 2014 Camp Schedule

Includes field trip destinations:

• Crowders’ Mountain State Park (geology, ecology, biology)
• US National Whitewater Center (for team building; life sciences (ecosystems a/biotic factors, water testing)
• Sugar Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility (chemistry)
• Farmers market (health, food science)
• UNCC visits (professors, greenhouses, chemistry demo machine )
• Carolina Raptor Center (biology, ecology, zoology)

For Further Reading:

The following links support and elaborate upon the ideas that are the foundation of Operation Pirate STEAMship:

Arts and Sciences Belong Together:

• Astronaut and MD Dr. Mae Jemison’s Speech “On Teaching Arts and Sciences Together”http://www.ted.com/talks/mae_jemison_on_teaching_arts_and_sciences_together.html
   

iPads as STEAM Integration Tools:

• http://www.teachthought.com/technology/reasons-to-use-tablets-in-the-21st-century-classroom/ )
• http://stem-and-ipad.wikispaces.com/

The “20% Project” Personal Time Enhances k12 Education:

• http://youtu.be/XbUkkJ-8hNU
• http://educationismylife.com/the-20-project-like-google-in-my-class/
• http://thetechclassroom.com/inspire-drive-innovation-and-creativity-the-20-project-in-the-classroom/

Tinkering, DIY Culture and the Maker Movement move into Education :

• http://www.exploratorium.edu/ifi/workshops/fundamentals/
• http://makerspace.com/
• http://www.exploratorium.edu/about/professional_development/institute_for_inquiry/
• http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/11/19/165033117/whats-the-big-idea-pentagon-agency-backs-student-tinkerers-to-find-out
• http://hacker-scouts.org/
• http://makezine.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY