A visit to Upper Adams

Earlier this month, I had a chance to visit Upper Adams School District.  My tour guide was Superintendent Wesley Doll.  This was a great experience just walking the halls and seeing his interactions with staff and students.  One goal of the district is to provide students with unique experiences.  I found this to be the case as I toured.  The school district is working with the PSU Fruit Research Center for students to have mentorships.  We stopped in the Ag shop to talk with two students who had just returned from a very successful FFA competition.  The students were explaining how they had to solve a problem involving trusses and supports.  This was a great explanation by the students who described two different methods of solution - one using technology and one using paper and pencil.  When their solutions matched, they were confident in the results and they won this part of the competition.  They are now working on restoring a tractor shown below.

Students have just about completed the work.  This type of authentic hands on work is very impressive.  Walking into the Tech Ed room saw a lot of student projects involving aerodynamics, robotics, multimedia and modeling.  They are doing work with TSA as well.  

  We then walked down to the library and saw the Help Desk team meeting.  This group of students was working with an Apple rep as they prepare to provide support to both students and staff.  The team took a field trip to learn about customer service.  I love this!!!!  Being able to provide support goes beyond the nuts and bolts of how the technology works.  Delivery and how you approach your work and "customer" are equally, if not more, important.  

  We walked into a classroom and I am struck by how different the rooms look.  This science room had comfy chairs!  

Students are working on brochures for the local state park that does not currently have any.  Again authentic work.  Overall, I was really impressed with the work I saw happening at Upper Adams!  Kudos to the Staff and Students.

A Visit to Littlestown

Visit to Littlestown

Thanks to Assistant Superintendent, Lori Stollar, for taking time to give me a tour of the Littlestown School District and discuss their upcoming plans for STEM.  There is construction going on in Littlestown as they are adding on to one building and plan to reopen it as a K-5 building next year.  Right in the middle of the building there will be a STEM room that will be used as a rotation for the elementary students. 

Pineapple Chart in MS Office

We started the tour at the middle school and WOW!  You can feel the excitement about learning throughout the building.  Students in grades 6, 7 and 8 are 1:1 with the 7^th and 8^th graders using iPads and 6^th graders using Chromebooks.  The middle school is Maple Avenue Middle School leading to the hashtag #mamslearning.  They have implemented a new program, the Pineapple Chart led by @cortgolden.  I learned that the pineapple is a welcoming fruit.  There is a chart in the office that teachers can sign up for to welcome visitors to see what is going on.  I thought this was a fantastic idea and you absolutely had the feeling that they want to show off the great things that are happening.  We walked around and found students interested and engaged in their learning.  One classroom had a makeshift Green Screen area.  Everywhere we went had 4Cs signs (http://www.p21.org/our-work/resources/for-educators/1007).  I could clearly see the culture is looking for students to embrace the 4Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.  We wound up the tour in the BLOC (Bolts Learning Opportunities Commons). 
This is the former library that has been reconfigured into a great space.  They had just unpacked a brand new 3D printer and had students lined up around it to watch it print.  There were comfy spaces, collaborative spaces with TVs, high tables to work at and special furniture to encourage working together.  I saw at least two classes using the BLOC at this time.

Comfy space in the BLOC

We also had a chance to visit the high school and elementary school.  More good things happening there as well.  The high school has a large area in the library they are looking to convert to a BLOC type space.  Students in drafting were working on plans – both the CAD type as well as brainstorming what would be needed in those spaces.  I heard about the 9^th grade experience or academy program with 4 courses built to help students.  They are actively working to have students working on career work.  This is the connection to real world work that is critical to helping students identify a successful career path.  The elementary teachers will be moving out and heading to new rooms (or back where they were for some) at the end of the school year.  I am excited to hear about their STEM rotation and how that person who fills the position will be able to work with others.

Overall, it was a great visit and walked away with several ideas for how schools could be working better. 

I had a chance to visit the Innovation Learning Center at Hanover High School and talk with their Director of Technology Dave Fry today.  This was a great experience as we saw some tremendous learning spaces.  They have converted the library into a Makerspace environment.  Here you can see VR station as well as 3D printer station.  There are several collaborative spaces as well for students to work. Some are within glass walls while other sit in the open spaces.  I really liked the opportunities for students to work together.  Students can sign up for the facilities and we saw several students come in and start working.  They had a gaming area and laser cutter / engraver.  There was also a table with kits that students could play with.  Along the far wall there were two recording students with cameras and green screen technology.  In between was a coffee bar for students.  All in all, it was a warm and inviting space that offers lots of opportunities for students to work and be creative.


We had a chance to walk over to the music and tech ed area where they showed us several other rooms that give students a chance to engage in authentic work.  The first was the music classroom with two soundproof recording studios.  Students use GarageBand to make recordings.  Students were also working in the new Gaming Room.  We saw students engaged in programming as well as VR activities.


The final stop was the robotics lab.  There were all the tools needed to design and create robots.  They were using things such as Vex and Raspberry Pi.  We also saw short throw projectors mounted vertically to create design stations that function as whiteboards on horizontal surfaces allowing for collaboration.

Welcome to LIU12 STEM Activities Blog

Hello and welcome to our blog.  This is the place where we will share all of the great activities taking place in Lincoln Intermediate Unit.  We are comprised of 25 school districts and over 80 non-public schools covering Adams, Franklin and York counties in Pennsylvania.  Ben Smith was just named as the Project Lead for STEM.  Ben is currently the Educational Technology Program Specialist for LIU12.  He is a former physics teacher and science chair from Red Lion Area School District where he served for 27 years.  He is also the Fair Director for the York County Science and Engineering Fair serving both York and Adams counties.  Look for more information on student activities, competitions and supports for school districts coming soon.