South Dakota Summer STEM Professional Development

Today, 116 teachers from across South Dakota descended on Platte for the first of four days of STEM teacher professional development.  PAST was joined by staff and facilitators from the MidCentral Educational Cooperative based here in Platte.  We spent the day introducing STEM as a delivery system, the common core standards, and brainstorming the first of several problems, projects and products that will be developed during the next four days.

Teacher's brainstormed projects that focused on topics including community development, communication issues between towns, citizenship, lack of local grocery stores in some towns, revitalizing business and industry, and sustainable farming.  Other schools decided to take on themes that focused on more specific targets including understanding water quality, how to manage our local landfills, community recycling, and how to increase attendance at school arts programs.  Lots of ideas, lots of collaboration and so much more to come tomorrow.