Riverside County Office of Education and Coachella Valley Unified School District educators define how a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics looks for students and educators.
When a school district decides to designate an elementary school as a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-focused campus, what does that mean? What does it look like inside the classroom? What changes for students and educators on campus?
These questions and more, were being asked of educators at the Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) over the years without a formal pathway to follow.
Beyond an increased focus on science-based curriculum, and general support from instructional services staff members at RCOE, there wasn’t a blueprint for transforming a school from the ground up to create more scientists in the world.
Video shows students at Mountain Vista Elementary School engaged in STEAM projects including kite building and testing to demonstrate the concepts of weight, drag, thrust, and lift, plant growth experiments, and computer based projects.
“It was a fragmented approach,” said Yamileth Shimojyo, STEM/Science Administrator at RCOE. “Internally, and with our district partners, we would ask ‘What makes a STEM school a STEM school?’ and we debated over the elements year after year.”
But, during the 2018-2019 school year, a task force of K-12 educators, business leaders, and higher education partners, met for over a year to develop a framework with rubrics that helped identify the characteristics, practices, and outcomes, of a STEM-based school.
“We didn’t want it to be prescriptive, but, instead, wanted to provide as much flexibility for schools to take their own approach,” Shimojyo said.
One model of building a STEM school came from Carnegie Science Center, a Pittsburgh-based organization focused on catalyzing transformational change in education so that every student has the opportunity to live a healthy, dignified, and fulfilling life.
As part of its ongoing work to support all 23 school districts in Riverside County, RCOE learned of the goals of the Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) to integrate a STEAM focus into elementary schools that added art as the “A” into their STEM focus, while connecting with their career and technical education initiatives.
In 2021, CVUSD was selected to engage one of their schools as a pilot to work with the Carnegie STEM Excellence Pathway Program with Mountain Vista Elementary School serving as the first district site.
“Coachella Valley USD is excited to partner with Riverside County Office of Education to build our STEM alignment in elementary schools. This is part of a much larger district-wide initiative to align K-12 learning to relevant college and career opportunities that exist in today’s world,” said Marie Perotti, Career and Technical Education (CTE) Director at Coachella Valley USD. “The district believes exposing elementary students to college and career readiness through the lens of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math will provide students more opportunities to connect academics to real-world relevant experiences, inspire their curiosity, and prepare them for exploratory programs at middle school, and preparation programs in high school and beyond.”
This journey began in 2021-2022 with one school: Mountain Vista Elementary School. Principal Valerie Perez had the vision to transform her school into a STEAM school to provide the best possible opportunities to her community.
“Being able to work with the knowledgeable RCOE staff has made our STEAM journey less stressful,” Valerie Perez said. “Our STEAM leadership team and all of our teachers really appreciate the guidance of the RCOE staff. We see a notable increase in teacher and student engagement in STEAM activities and vital behaviors after every meeting and professional development.”
As part of the program, the principal commits to being the STEM Champion, they identify their STEM Leadership team, and together, they use the Pathway Tool to reflect on their current practices, obtain input, identify areas that need work, and write an implementation plan with specific action. This plan is continuously reviewed and revised throughout the implementation process.
One of the primary goals of the program is to provide students with 21st century skills of collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and compassion. With these skill sets, they can thrive as a learner now, and into their future.
Video shows students at Sea View Elementary School working together on STEAM projects including LEGO and other robotics kits, Rube Goldberg projects, and structure building with a variety of materials.
Beyond the STEM labs and training for educators, one example of the STEM focus in action at Mountain Vista Elementary School is the implementation of a Wonder Wall to begin the inquiry teaching process in all classrooms. The teachers identify phenomena and students post their answers to these questions: “What do you see?”, “What do you wonder?” Students are then challenged to make observations and begin the critical thinking process. During one of the data classroom walks, 99% of classrooms were implementing this inquiry strategy.
Mountain Vista students feed into Cahuilla Desert Academy (CDA) Middle School and Coachella Valley High School (CVHS). Both CDA and CVHS have multiple STEM-focused CTE programs.
“This year, the district saw an increase of participation in CTE programs at CDA, and a huge increase in students participating in an after-school program, KidWind,” Marie Perotti said. “This is the type of impact we want to see—students engaging in STEM programs that inspire them to continue a path to be college and career ready in STEM fields.”
After a successful launch at Mountain Vista Elementary School, an additional four schools (Palm View ES, Sea View ES, Saul Martinez ES, and Cesar Chavez ES) started receiving support from RCOE in 2022-2023 in their first year of the Carnegie STEM Excellence Pathway Program. In 2023-2024, two additional schools, Peter Pendleton Elementary and Valley View Elementary, will join the program.
“All students in Riverside County should have the opportunity to pursue a STEM career, and that starts with educators providing programs and pathways that expand the potential for how they see the world and their own ability to make an impact on it,” said Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Edwin Gomez.
