The Tatnall School The Tatnall School has a rich and vibrant STEM program, which is enthusiastically accepted by students. Tatnall’s mission to nurture young, curious minds through inspiring and rigorous curricula, award-winning staff, and advanced technology is clearly exhibited in its STEM classes.
STEM PROGRAMS SOAR AT
THE TATNALL SCHOOL By Amy Alkire
In the past decade or so schools throughout the U.S. added STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to curriculums. Surprising to many parents, the program isn’t as new as they believed. STEM can trace its roots to 1862 when land grant universities were created to promote agricultural science. Engineering programs were subsequently established. More attention was brought to science in the 1950s with the launch of NASA. At the turn of this century, the National Science Foundation created SMET for educators to follow in grades K-12. The acronym was later changed to its current STEM. The Tatnall School has a rich and vibrant STEM program, which is enthusiastically accepted by students. Tatnall’s mission to nurture young, curious minds through 72
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inspiring and rigorous curricula, awardwinning staff, and advanced technology is clearly exhibited in its STEM classes.
STEM Extends its Reach
Heather Brooks, Innovation and STEM coordinator for Tatnall’s Early Childhood and Lower School, observes the influence the program has on other areas in her students’ lives. “Tatnall’s growing STEM education also allows students to develop an entrepreneurial spirit and a stronger understanding of successful business practices and fiscal responsibility. Students create budgets, work to meet client and end-user expectations, and deal with time, financial, and material constraints. Challenges are designed to inspire innovation and creativity, but also give students some experiences in MacGyver-esque bootstrapping, or using the resources they have to solve a problem.”
One example of STEM project-based learning involves Lower School students working together in a Tinker Lab, which is a contemporary shop class. They learn about circuitry and create objects on 3D printers. In a Tech Hub, kids interact with 75 to 100 robots, such as EV-3, Sphero, Ozobots, and BeeBots. “Our SPIKE Prime robotics program invites students to build a robot, program it to complete challenge, but it also asks students to research local problems, develop solutions to those problems, and present their solutions to others,” said Heather, who has been at Tatnall for 13 years. Heather’s background as a parent, teacher, website developer, graphic artist, news writer, and retail manager, position her perfectly for the range of activities associated with STEM. Problem solving is a major STEM focus at Tatnall. One past project featured a trash conveyor intended to recycle refuse.