Lincolnview shows off new STEM Lab

DAVE MOSIER/for the independent

After more than 30 years of teaching, Lincolnview teacher Christie Wendel feels like she is living the dream after becoming the first coordinator of the new Lancer Learning Lab.

“I’m living my best life right now,” she said.

The lab is the vision of Elementary Principal Nita Meyer, who spearheaded the creation of an elementary STEM learning space as part of the then-proposed school addition.

Like many K-12 schools, Lincolnview has been seeking ways to place more and more emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) career education, largely because of the shortage of science-trained workers in the U.S.

“There’s so much interest in the technology and the robotics, and making a career connection,” Wendel said.

Wendel said she was chosen to helm the STEM Lab project at the start of the current school year following more than three decades as an elementary teacher after she decided she would like a new challenge.

“I said ‘I know this is crazy, but I think I would like a change,” Wendel said she told Meyer before the start of the school year. The principal suggested the STEM program, and the project appealed to the fourth-grade teacher, who said she has enjoyed teaching science throughout her career.

Wendel noted that, with the program just getting off the ground, she started with a “blank slate,” so to speak, with few Lincolnview elementary students very familiar with robotic technology. “We’re all at ‘ground zero,’” she said.

To start, Wendel was able to acquire some grants to help defray the cost of robots and other equipment and materials used in the lab, and the program also includes literacy elements as well, with Wendel choosing a book that Media Assistant Marcia Weldy reads to students prior to their lab time. 

Students are in the lab a week at a time as part of a rotation system with other classes, such as physical education.

Because of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday the current unit is on the book Balloons on Broadway, which tells the story of Tony Sarg, a puppeteer who invented the giant balloons used in the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

As part of their projects, students are given various computer coding challenges, and they also created parade floats, fancy balloons, and costumes for their robots. Wendel said the same robots, which are programmed by students via computer code, can be used over several years by gradually increasing the complexity of programming challenges as students move to a higher grade level.

The lab also teaches students financial literacy as well.

To keep the program cost-effective and material waste to a minimum, Wendel gave each student a “budget” of $75 fake dollars they could spend on materials for their floats and other projects related to the Thanksgiving unit. As a bonus, students learned that recyclable materials were free, since they could be reused.

Wendel said many students tell her the lab is their favorite class. That’s something she can definitely agree with.