Cheshire elementary students complete district-wide robotics and agriscience pilot funded by Cheshire Ed Foundation

At a recent Cheshire School District Board of Education meeting, district staff and two science teacher coaches summarized a pilot STEM program that gave fourth- and fifth-grade students hands-on robotics and agriscience instruction funded by a grant from the Cheshire Ed Foundation and supported through the Board’s budget approved last year.

The presentation, delivered by the district’s science teacher coaches, described a fall robotics unit and a spring agriscience unit aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The coaches said the robotics work asked students to design, build and program two-wheeled robot prototypes to carry imaginary supplies and to navigate different terrains and obstacles; the agriscience unit focused on soil, erosion, nutrient cycles and sustainable versus unsustainable farming practices.

The coaches said the robotics kits were purchased through True Robotics and that students built robots in teams over two class periods, then progressed to block-based coding, sensor programming and testing on a classroom “playground.” They…