FORTVILLE — Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation plans to use a grant from the Indiana Department of Education to help students become innovative problem-solvers.
Mt. Vernon recently received a $50,000 K-6 STEM acceleration grant from the DOE, said Heather Noesges, the district’s director of elementary education. The application was written to provide support for classroom teachers in all subjects to be able to apply science, technology, engineering and math concepts to their curriculum, Noesges said. The grant application is among the most recent efforts to increase STEM access at all of its schools, officials said. (STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math.)
In July, the DOE announced that Mt. Vernon was the first district in the state to be STEM-certified in all grades, reflecting substantial changes to integrate STEM in many areas of study, according to the district.
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Among the changes that helped the district earn the certification was hiring two elementary STEM teachers who provide weekly activities to every elementary student; hiring an eighth-grade robotics teacher; establishing robotics clubs at every school in the district; and hiring two technology integration specialists to help support the meaningful use of technology within the curriculum.
In addition, Mt. Vernon has provided all students with a device of their own, a laptop or an iPad, to help them with their studies in and out of school, since 2016.
With funding from the grant, teachers will attend the Project Lead the Way Summit Feb. 17-19 in Indianapolis, Noesges said. The summit will provide in-depth training sessions, workshops and more based on the nonprofit organization’s “pathways” teaching students technical skills, problem solving and creative and critical thinking, according to the organization’s website.
“We want to expand the curriculum that’s currently offered to our K-6 students,” she said. “We want to integrate things like robotics across the different subjects and expand their thinking with tools we plan on handing to teachers.”
Mt. Vernon is working with 1st Maker Space, an Indianapolis-based business that designs and develops the technology spaces, to integrate STEM and computer science throughout elementary students’ entire school day, she said.
An elementary-based maker space will feature items for kindergarten through sixth-grade students, including 3D printers, virtual reality glasses and more items.
The district has recently worked with 1st Maker Space to establish one such maker space at the high school, where students and teachers from any class can reserve equipment like 3D printers for a project, officials said.
Noesges said a team of teachers worked for about a month to write the grant application, which requested $50,000 in total for the efforts.
“We were excited and honored when we were notified we received the grant,” she said.
