FULL STEAM AHEAD
the objects and describe the differences between the flower, which grows naturally, and the spoon, which is human-made. It’s full-STEAM ahead for the students “Another way to describe an object is and faculty of Sacred Heart Catholic School by the form and function,” she stresses, in Gallup, NM. introducing two specific scientific terms to This semester, Sacred Heart becomes the her students. first school in McKinley County to offer This is the beginning of the STEAM a full curriculum in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math for each student program in the school, an initiative first championed by Anna Biava, who served in preschool through the eighth grade. on the school’s board for numerous years. In the 2nd Grade classroom, Brenda Biava noticed the challenges facing students Sanchez is distributing a lily and a kitchen spoon to her students. She asks them to feel seeking to transfer to a career following By Suzanne Hammons
16
March 2019
graduation from high school or college. “What I found is that New Mexico has a workforce crisis,” she said. “There’s a big movement in the state to try to remedy the education system in order to support the workforce.” The solution: Biava developed a partnership between Sacred Heart School and Project Lead the Way, a national curriculum for engineering and science centered around hands-on learning and problem-solving. New Mexico State University is the program’s official state affiliate, and seeks to establish new STEAM programs throughout the state. Dr. Patricia Sullivan, an associate dean with NMSUs College of Engineering, views the relationship between Sacred Heart School and the university as mutually beneficial. “From our end, at New Mexico State, we’re just really interested in reaching out to partners, especially in rural areas and all over the state, to make sure that students have an opportunity to engage in quality STEAM education at middle and high school levels,” Sullivan said. Once students develop STEAM skills, they then can choose to apply those skills to a specific field in college, which then fosters a better job market throughout New Mexico. “A lot of kids have expertise in some of the hands-on applications, but they don’t necessarily relate it to degrees in STEAM fields. They may have grown up in agricultural areas; they may have grown up around some sort of manufacturing, and even around the refineries,” Sullivan said. “A lot of those are STEAM skills, so it may not just be masters and PhD degrees - we’re talking about associate degrees, we’re talking about just out of high school people with STEAM skills have a higher job opportunity.” Sullivan visited Sacred Heart for the fall semester when the school held a community launch day, complete with a parade and visits to the school. Over the following weeks, every teacher in the school undertook a two-day intensive study given by members of Project Lead the Way, so that each teacher could begin to understand and roll out the STEAM initiative in their
