New Beginnings in Porcupine, SD

The STEM on the Road team is winding down this week in South Dakota. We had the opportunity to finish our week with the teams from the Pahin Sinte Owayawa Porcupine school. The school is located in Porcupine, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Every morning our drive has taken us through the ghost town Scenic and Badlands National Park and then we come to the beautiful K-8th grade school building to help co-design what problem based learning will look like at Porcupine.

We have had the opportunity to meet with educators who serve students in grade 5-8 and range from being paraprofessionals to the Lakota language instructors. And, they have rocked the house in their first design plan for what a problem based curriculum can look like for their students and their communities. Teams have designed work that will engage their students in proposing the construction of a cultural center, and investigating how a wolf traveled all the way to the reservation, and exploring the existence of the yeti! The planning stages are always exciting for us, but what will be really exciting will be the opportunities throughout the year to help make these ideas come to fruition for the educators and students alike. Presentations are tomorrow which will end our week of professional development, but really this is just the beginning of what this journey and transformation will look like! Cheers to every new beginning and redesigning what "school" can look like!

Stories from South Dakota 2

Annalies, Sheli, Ketal, Sylvia and I left Lower Brule yesterday after a wonderful afternoon of presentations. Teachers from Lower Brule and Crow Creek are well on their way to implementing some fantastic projects which are meaningful to their students and community. Teachers really came together to collaborate. Projects included: exploring the sense of self through cultural art and ethnobotany, what food security means and how to improve their community.
We arrived in Rapid City last night and celebrated Ketal's birthday. We set off this morning and traveled through the Badlands to Porcupine Day School. Teachers brainstormed and designed transdisciplinary projects that are really going to excite student learning. Today was a great day. Looking forward to tomorrow...more creativity, further design and continued collaboration.

On the Road in South Dakota

So the temperature is cooling off here in South Dakota, we only reached 100 degrees today, in comparsion to our 107 degree day yesterday. STEM on the Road was at it again today, plotting and planning some amazing projects with teachers from Lower Brule and Crow Creek. Teachers expanded upon projects devloped yesterday and moved into planning their first quarter. Jill Weimer, PhD from Sanford Health, joined us today to continue our partnership and share some engaging science resources. Tomorrow are presentations by teachers to share out what they have planned. Looking forward to hearing about the exciting and enriching projects.The landscape here in the high plains is vast and breath taking. The road seems to go on forever. During our morning drive we saw a number of different animals: deer, a coyote, pheasants and my favorite, prairie dogs. Wondering what animals will greet us on our drive tomorrow....

Stories from South Dakota

So, it turns out July in South Dakota is blazing hot!!!  But, the 107 degree weather is hardly something to keep the STEM on the road team at home.  So, Sheli, Annalies, Kat and I are once again making our way across the great state of South Dakota, having mini adventures in Chamberlain and definitely getting a view of the bridge from the aptly named Bridgeview Inn.  But, of course those stories are for another time.  This story is about us meeting teachers and administrators from Lower Brule and Crow Creek to design problem based learning that makes sense for their kids and their communities.  The energy and conversation have been great, teams are excited to design ways to improve their community as well as how to truly explore the cultural identity that exists within these systems.   From there teams have started talking about designing projects for their kids around ethnobotany and the relevance to Native American people, examining the Lakota and Dakota languages, and engaging students in creating a new playground, and so much more.  And, here is my favorite part, we get to do this all summer long, and the process stays the same and we play with everyone to every idea the same, but the stories are all different, and that really is the best part.  Every story is different and everyone brings their own spin.  We pride ourselves on throwing out the "one size fits all" model of education, and we get to do that because we get to be part of all the collaboration and the stories!  More great work tomorrow, and of course more stories!