For the past few weeks, students at Warren L. Miller have been learning about the physics of flight during library classes. Through Google Expeditions, PowerPoint presentations & read alouds, students learned about lift, thrust, drag & gravity, and what makes objects fly.

As a culminating activity, the high school STEAM Team joined Mrs. Nawri and Mrs. Sember at WLMiller to facilitate stem-based challenges designed around the theme of ‘Taking Flight Into Summer’ using materials from the MakerSpace to complete the challenges.

Mrs. Nawri and Mrs. Sember, Library Media Specialists at WLMiller & NPMHS have collaborated throughout the year in a series of whole-school stem-based learning events that have included pre-K through sixth grade.

The NPHMS high school STEAM team is comprised of a group of 9-12 students who work as mentors to k-6 students at WLM. This year, three collaborative days were scheduled: Global MakerDay in October (Students in K-6 participated in a variety of unplugged challenges that required them to make, create, build, design, and innovate while focusing on the maker theme), Robotics Day in February (students worked on challenges that centered on the theme ‘Robots in the Community’), and the final theme “Taking Flight into Summer”. During each of the collaborative days, high school students act as mentors as they coach the elementary students who work within a team to complete a STEM challenge. The STEAM Team spends several class periods prior to each session at WLM to prepare and master the challenges.