GREENFIELD — Greenfield-Central schools received a grant of more than $72,000 to support STEM-based education initiatives districtwide, for preschoolers through high schoolers.
It was among 34 school districts in the state to be awarded the fully-funded STEM Acceleration Grant from the Indiana Department of Education.
The grant — totaling $72,430 — will support classroom materials, professional resources for teachers, paid professional development for teachers, and off-site visits for instructional leadership teams.
“The majority of our funding will be used for classroom materials that will integrate STEM components within practices that currently occur in the classroom,” said Lori Katz, director of secondary curriculum, instruction, and assessment for Greenfield-Central schools.
In pre-K and elementary classrooms, the materials will help teachers integrate STEM principles into literacy. In the intermediate and middle schools, it will support hands-on STEM opportunities for students. At the high school, teachers can access professional development resources to enhance classroom instruction.
“The disciplines in STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — all improve students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills,” Katz said. “In a world where students’ ability to process the information they gather is an important skill, we look for ways to constantly support the development of that skill.”
Lisa Leliaert, instructional math coach at both Greenfield and Maxwell intermediate schools, said incorporating STEM principles in the classroom is essential to education.
To promote the concept, Leliaert organized a Family STEM Night at Maxwell Intermediate School, where students and parents were able to engage with real-world learning applications presented by local businesses and the National Weather Service. This summer, she’ll help direct Camp Invention, a week-long day camp at which students take part in hands-on STEM activities like controlling a flight simulation robot.
Katz said such extra-curricular opportunities are the perfect complement to Greenfield-Central’s mission to incorporate STEM -based learning into the classroom for all students.
The corporation’s efforts fit into a six-year initiative that was unveiled by the state department of education in 2018. “Its goal is to ensure Indiana teachers are prepared to provide every student in grades K-12 with an evidence-based, effective STEM education by 2025,” said Katz, who noted that Greenfield-Central schools are ahead of the curve.
She thinks the corporation was likely awarded the STEM grant because it met all the grant criteria, most notably offering STEM opportunities to students at all grade levels.
“Schools and teachers throughout the district have offered STEM opportunities to students for several years,” Katz said.
“Some schools have STEM fairs in the afternoons and evenings and invite community members to participate in discussing student work with students. Teachers request STEM materials via grants from the Greenfield-Central Community School Foundation. Our hope is to make STEM opportunities available for a broader range of students on a more systematic level,” she said
To win the grant, “we had to show that we were capable of growth in the areas of STEM professional development, curriculum, and career exploration. We also had to propose a plan to accelerate the STEM initiative via curriculums, teacher training, instructional support, early STEM exposure and equitable access,” Katz said.
The grant will help the corporation broaden the materials used on a regular basis in order to help bring additional STEM experiences to students, she said.
