STEAM team of six teachers at Drew’s K-5 campus, the technology,
The STEAM partnership work that we have been able to do at Drew
art, robotics, STEM lab, and engineering teachers - yes, this is a K - 5
comes closer to something akin to pure research in science than
school with an engineering department - and I also rope in the music
anything I’ve experienced at any other school. Feeling encouraged to
and dance teachers when I can. Last summer the school opened a
be innovative fosters camaraderie and collegiality. As the saying
new building across the street with a Junior Academy and Senior
goes: “We’re building this airplane as we are flying it!”. So hand me a
Academy and I’ve begun to partner with senior academy teachers,
wrench!
too. Together we create STEAM projects and document them to
share with other schools and with the steady stream of visitors who
come through Drew. I’ve never been at a school that gets toured by
visitors from around the state and around the country as much as
But, of course, what’s important in the end is what the students get to
do and whether or not it serves them well as learners, not how much
fun the professionals are having.
Drew does. My ‘home base’ at the school is the engineering lab and
groups touring the school always want to come in there to see what’s
happening because so few elementary schools have an engineering
department. A film crew from Edutopia spent a week at the school
this fall. So we are in sort of a fish bowl.
Fourth grade students using the Tinker Yard as a research tool for their Avian Architecture project at
Drew Charter School.
Design Thinking
A shared focus on design thinking is what keeps the different STEAM
partners at Drew stitched together. Drew has two full time art
teachers and two large art rooms where a good blend of traditional
media and digital media are used for design challenges. [The art and
engineering programs at Drew were recently featured in a ‘Profiles of
Quality’ report published by the Southeastern Center for Education
in the Arts.] My first visits to Drew, arranged by the school’s partners
at Georgia State University’s music department, and hosted by the
two art teachers, were for a series of Art & Math infusion workshops.
These workshops led to an improv outdoor sculpture “jam” with
fourth graders on a site adjacent to the school’s main entrance, which
was co-coached by the engineering teacher, Courtney Bryant. This
sculpture only remained on site for less than a week, but it created
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