Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Kern County Office of Education highlights STEAM4Kern and Steam Yard, expanding camps and a lending library
Loading...
Summary
Cole Sampson, KCSOS assistant superintendent, told trustees the STEAM4Kern initiative and the Steam Yard facility have expanded hands-on learning across the county, reporting thousands of student interactions, a lending-library for classroom equipment, an expanded teacher professional-development model and plans to extend programming into East Kern.
Cole Sampson, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the Kern County Office of Education, told the board on March 10 that the county’s STEAM4Kern initiative has rapidly expanded outreach and programming and that the Steam Yard facility is central to that work. "It is an interactive hands‑on space where kids are gonna get to come have fun, explore, learn, dream, and innovate," Sampson said.
Sampson said the program was rebranded two years ago from "Science for Kern" and now includes maker spaces (for TK–2 and grades 3–8), a recording studio, a drone and VEX room, hydroponics and a lending library of classroom technology. Since August the program has offered more than 70 field trips, Sampson said, serving over 5,000 students on morning field trips and reporting more than 11,000 student interactions across its camps and programs this school year. He told trustees the office employs about 90 college‑age mentors countywide to staff camps and that those mentors are becoming a local pipeline into education careers.
The Steam Yard also operates a lending library that lets teachers and homeschool programs request kits and technology—3D printers, Makey Makeys, microscopes, micro:bits and robotics tools—so classroom staff can check out equipment for classroom use, Sampson said. Staff support includes training: if a school buys equipment but lacks trained staff, the Steam Yard will train teachers on how to use it.
Sampson said the program is testing a professional development model that pairs an eight‑hour Monday PD day for teachers with co‑teaching in week‑long STEAM camps so teachers practice lessons and immediately debrief and refine approaches. He described the approach as a way to translate professional learning directly into classroom practice.
Trustees praised the initiative’s reach and noted plans to expand programming into Mohave (East Kern) with on‑site after‑school camps. Sampson also previewed a slate of county events tied to the initiative, including IgniteHER (a one‑day conference for female third‑through‑sixth graders), Kern Codes (a fourth‑through‑eighth‑grade coding competition) and a county STEAM Olympiad on May 4.
Why it matters: trustees and staff said the Steam Yard and its lending model help districts that have purchased technology but lack the staff training to use it fully; the board cited the program as both student enrichment and teacher professional development that supports countywide implementation of California NGSS standards.
Next steps: Sampson invited districts and teachers to use the lending library and field trips and said information is available on the Steam Yard site (kernsteamyard.org) and through the Kern County Office of Education web pages.
