Westlawn’s STEAM program

At Westlawn, our school mission and vision are “to provide a safe and nurturing learning environment within which children are empowered to develop independence, maximize the skills that make them individually unique, and become global citizens, ready to positively impact their community. The school and community partner to provide each child the love, care, and support necessary to achieve at their highest potential now and into the future. We empower children to make positive change.” As on way to achieve our mission, we strive to provide community involvement opportunities and outreach, after school clubs, and exposure to STEAM curriculum embedded throughout the school day. As a Title I school, most of our families do not have the ability to provide these STEM opportunities at home. However, our community readily takes advantage of the opportunities we provide. As the STEAM teacher, my personal goal is to increase opportunities for traditionally underserved populations to access STEAM content through a variety of measures.

Westlawn has been in partnership with Northrop Grumman through the ESTEEM grant since 2019-2020 school year. This partnership grant has enabled Westlawn to purchase materials not only for the STEAM specials block, but also to be able to offer a robust afterschool program at no cost to our students. Each year, we have grown our program thanks to the money included in the grant:

-2019-2020 school year, we offered our first after school program using the grant, Student Leadership Academy, to 6th graders only. We had 4 teachers engaged in the program.

-2020-2021, while virtual, we offered 2 distinct programs (Micro:bits and Intro to Engineering) to students in grades 2- 6. 39 students participated and we had 5 teachers.

-2021-2022, we offered 4 STEAM programs during a Spring cohort (not including SLA which we ran as a separate program). 39 students and 5 teachers participated in our after school program, 5 students joined a Virtual Coding Club, 6 students joined Virtual STEM Club and we had a rotating lunch club for grade 5.

-This year, 2022-2023, we held STEAM Academy in two cohorts. For the Fall 22 cohort, we had 81 after school students and 9 teachers (including two coordinators). We just wrapped up the Spring cohort with 7 classes, 112 students, 8 Westlawn teachers as well as 2 volunteers from Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation. Virtual STEM Club is held on Thursdays over zoom and we continue to hold lunch clubs for those students who are unable to stay after school. A few weeks ago we launched the STEAM Materials Home Checkout program where students can check out items like Kano devices, Ozobots, Micro:bits, and Snap Circuits. This year we also introduced our new 3D printer and as of today have printed out 210 student projects!