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STEM teacher showcases revamped middle‑school lab; board to buy higher‑end robotics
Summary
Janine, the district STEM teacher, showed board members projects from hatching chicks to hydroponics and student-built robots and said the board will consider a purchase of higher‑end Tetrick robots to expand robotics instruction.
Janine, the district STEM teacher, walked the Coldwater Community Schools Board of Education through a year of middle‑school STEM projects and said the program now blends hands‑on engineering, coding and sustainability lessons in a lab that used to be the wood shop.
At a presentation to the board, Janine described the STEM sequence: sixth‑grade STEM foundations, a seventh‑grade “I Can Code” module and applied engineering and robotics options in eighth grade. She highlighted student projects including LEGO robotics, a competitive metal robot the district entered in November, a hydroponic “My Garden” pilot and a spring unit in which students hatched fertilized eggs to observe embryonic development.
“Welcome everybody to the STEM lab. I am honored and proud to present what we're doing here,” Janine said, describing woodworking projects (birdhouses, planter boxes and step stools), coding exercises with Sphero robots and lessons intended to expose students to trades and career paths.
Janine told the board that an action item on the agenda would approve purchase of higher‑end robotics (described in the meeting as Tetrick metal robots) to let students progress from basic LEGO robots to more advanced builds. She and a presenter from the district said students have participated in competitions and the program plans to expand robotics offerings to more students.
The board did not debate the presentation itself; the robotics purchase was brought up later on the consent/action agenda and approved during that portion of the meeting.
The presentation emphasized hands‑on problem solving, iterative design (including deliberate 'safe failure' in engineering exercises) and sustainability lessons such as recycling, hydroponic gardening and food‑production concepts. Janine invited board members and the public to return to visit the lab and see the projects in person.
The board approved the associated robotics procurement later in the meeting as part of routine action items.
