Congratulations to our “Taking Flight” LIGHT Awards team at John McCandless STEM Charter School in Stockton!
Two Intrepid Philanthropy Foundation board members were thrilled to attend their Flight Museum Open House on Thursday, March 2, 2017. This event was the culmination of the group’s first year creating a series of new lessons related to the theme of flight as they pursued professional development around STEM essentials and best practices for implementing vertically-aligned Project Based Learning (PBLs). Each elementary grade level worked on a specific flight-related topic, took a field trip related to their study, and shared their work and accomplishments with parents and the community at the well-attended Open House. The highly engaging new curriculum introduced students to the science of flight by exploring birds, parachutes, rockets and airplanes. Upper level students explored more futuristic potential applications of flight (such as “Could I create a device that would help my dog to fly?”).
The Stockton Record newspaper also attended the Open House, and published this article and photos of the school’s inspired students.
This summer, the team plans to engage in further learning to integrate design thinking into STEM PBLs. Next year, they will share their process and products with the broader STEM community. We can’t wait to see how far this team will fly!
