Mobile STEAM Hubs

Check out some excellent STEAM coverage from the Sacramento Bee earlier this week. The piece trumpets the possibilities for science and arts education currently being explored in Summit, Mississippi.

The article is full of feedback from STEAM teachers taken aback by the impact technological innovation is having on the rising interest levels of their young students.

Children are reportedly riveted when science is demonstrated in a new kind of digital education space dubbed “zSpace Labs."

“ 'The kids' excitement just doesn't die,” Mary Ellis, a teacher at the Kennedy Early Childhood Center said "The longer they are on it, the more they love it. '”

Mississippi's McComb county school district has retrofitted two school buses into zSpace Labs. zSpace labs are centers that make it possible for students to put abstract principles from science technology, math, engineering, and the arts into practice.

The labs feature cutting-edge science learning software that makes use of 3d technology to allow science students to do things like visualize the size, shape, and texture of the human heart. Wielding the 3D learning lab’s signature stylus, children can practice digital dissection of pixellated animals, watch the inner workings of a volcano, traverse far-flung planets, and peer into the anatomy of a pupating caterpillar.

Originally developed for the department of defense, the technology was eventually so effective that it was adapted for the use of children and first cropped up in California classrooms a few years ago. The visual depiction of biology is so clear and exact that it has moved beyond the bus and is now being used in Medical Schools across the country.

When Mary Ellis told reporter Karen Freeman about the approach that guides her when she takes her students, she might as well have coined a new motto for the entire STEAM movement.

“ ‘I never underestimate the kids ’ Ellis said. “

Here at CCEC, we promote new forms of STEAM education in order to live up to that creed.

Please read the entire article on the Sacramento Bee website.

http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/celebrities/article93231547.html