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Date: 8/10/2022
LONGMEADOW – This fall, Glenbrook and Williams Middle Schools in Longmeadow are offering classes to harness and nurture the interests of students in science, technology, engineering, art and math, collectively known by the acronym STEAM.
Glenbrook Middle School teacher Anne Marie Salvon said she is excited to embrace a more holistic way to teach these skills to students. Salvon is teaming up with Williams Middle School’s new STEAM teacher, John McCarthy. This is McCarthy’s first year in Longmeadow Public Schools (LPS), after teaching at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School in South Hadley.
The classes will address school standards by using STEAM to take on real world problems. Salvon gave an example of how a topic, such as climate change, would be localized to talk about how animals native to Longmeadow are changing their behaviors as a result of the climate and what can be done. She said that she and McCarthy also plan to have students work with solar cars to explore electricity and bottle rockets to look at physics.
The first project to kick off the STEAM class will be a surprise to students, but Salvon said it will be “a challenge using newspapers to apply the engineering design process to a potential real-world problem.”
The project will be part team building exercise, part engineering problem Salvon said. She explained it will require students to brainstorm, plan, blueprint, build and fine-tune designs. In addition to the lesson around the engineering design process, Salvon said she hopes the students will discuss what happens to newspapers when people are done reading them and post-consumer processes.
The STEAM classes will replace the computer science classes at both middle schools, since computers are now integrated into the everyday schoolwork. A pair of sixth-grade teachers piloted the program in the 2021-2022 school year and wrote the curriculum. The decision to add it to the course catalog was made at the end of the school year.
Salvon has been teaching computer classes but said she is looking forward to the change.
“I had the opportunity to shadow STEAM teachers at Agawam Junior High School in late May, where I learned first-hand why Agawam is touted as having the top-notch STEAM program,” Salvon said, “and this was confirmed by the fact that every student in each of the 10 classes I attended were thoroughly engaged, as was I, in all the creative hands-on STEAM activities.”
STEAM is unique because hands-on learning is integral to the classes, Salvon said. She pointed out that there are different types of learning and some students learn by using their hands. “I think that’s what’s missing from lots of classes.” Rather than rote memorization and regurgitation of facts, Salvon said, “Students are learning to think critically.”
McCarthy and Salvon will be working with the core subject teachers to find out what topics need work and could be reinforced through STEAM lessons.
Glenbrook has had a MakerSpace – a lab where students can create things – for some time, but Salvon said it has been an afterschool activity. The STEAM program will take those interests and bring them into day-today coursework.
“Hopefully, we’re birthing the next generation of scientists, engineers and artists,” Salvon said.