A high school steeped in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)-based curriculum isn’t classrooms packed with lab coat-wearing, calculator-wielding kids who have been rewiring electrical appliances since the second grade. In fact, many students come to Metro with no more of a predilection for science than you’ll find in any other school.
There are laboratories full of the beakers and Bunson burners that you might expect, but those rooms are also festooned with atom-like balloons hanging from the ceiling and student-drawn cartoon strips on the doors about the composition of a cell. Art students teach their peers principles of geometry by helping them to create tessellations like M.C. Escher. In English classrooms, students do research and pick apart elements of language like scientists. Social studies classes use mapping software and spreadsheets to plot a deeper understanding of world events.
To find out more about STEM around the U.S. and in Ohio, try these sites:
- STEM Education Coalition
- National Science Board STEM Recommendations for the Obama Administration (PDF Download)
- Ohio STEM Learning Network
- Ohio Mathematics and Science Coalition
- MC2Stem Hub
- Reynoldsburg City Schools’ Definition of STEM
