Can you imagine sitting in your sukkah while it’s raining and still fulfilling the mitzvah? It is no longer just a figment of your imagination, Mr. Zev Steen says, as he regales me with the fantastically creative ideas and inventions of his Bnos Yisroel high school STEM students. This invention actually works, and the pertinent halachos have been discussed with Rabbi Heinemann.
Bnos Yisroel, TA, TI, and Bais Yaakov have all injected
their curricula with a creative new class within the past four years, called
STEM. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and, according
to Wikipedia, “is a broad
term used to group together these academic disciplines.” Mr. Steen tells me,
however, that his STEM class not only stretches the mind in math and science
but also involves significant amounts of creativity.
Mrs. Attar, Bais Yaakov High School STEM
teacher, further explains the class. “Essentially,
our STEM course focuses on electrical engineering and programming. Students are
taught fundamentals of electricity, how to wire circuits, and how to program
those components to make complex, interactive systems. What is so unique about
the course is that the learning is mostly done in groups and is really in each
student’s hands. Students take ownership of their learning, and so much of
their knowledge is gained through their own exploration and trial and error.”
Most schools offer their STEM class in
conjunction with CIJE (Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education), an
organization that strives to increase STEM learning in Jewish schools across
the country. They provide the workbooks, materials, and curriculum, and it is
the teachers’ and students’ job to run with it. Mr. Steen, for example,
includes 3D printing in his class, something his students describe as “really
fun!”
Students are tasked with the
all-encompassing, slightly overwhelming, but all-in-all enthralling job of
creating an invention. Mr. Steen says that the most difficult part of the year
is coming up with ideas of what to invent. “I instruct them to think of a potential solution for a challenge,” he
explains. Each team discusses ideas and brainstorm how their creativity
can come to fruition. “It’s not only the inventing, the science, and the design;
it’s also the business aspect,” Mr. Steen elaborates. “Students need to pitch
their ideas to the judges and explain how they think their inventions will be
able to sell.”
Yes, we did mention judges, so there must be a
competition. Schools that participate in the STEM program travel to the Tristate
area to join 2,500 other students to present their inventions, pitch their
ideas to the judges –
in other words, to wow the crowd.
I am definitely wowed when Mr. Steen tells me some of the
inventions his students have come up with in the past or are currently working
on. Their creativity, perseverance, and ingenuity are astounding. Esther Baden,
a tenth grader in Bnos Yisroel, agrees that it is amazing that “we have the
opportunity to make an invention that the world can actually use. And we are
just in high school!” One sports-minded student is working on a sensor that
detects fouls when a basketball player is shooting, and a student with a
diabetic sibling is working on an improved blood sugar sensor. The students are
finding real problems, coming up with real solutions, and learning new skills
in a very real way.
Not only do students gain
technical expertise, but Esther also mentions the teamwork involved. “You learn
how to interact with people who have different views. When you are working on
the same project, towards the same goal, you have to learn how to work
together.”
Mrs. Attar concurs: “I have
seen students exhibit tremendous personal growth. STEM is not just about taking
a few wires and electrical components and putting them together; it teaches students
to take ownership of their learning, be resilient, and to persevere despite
setbacks.”
In addition to the STEM classes that many local schools
offer, there is another program that piqued my interest: robotics. Every year,
there is a tournament, where the robots of dozens of schools compete. “We build
robots from scratch,” Akiva Shnitzer, a seventh-grade TI student tells me
excitedly. “Every year there is a different challenge. This year, the challenge
is for the robot to get balls into the basket, and points are awarded.
Whichever school earns the most points wins.”
Mr. Sean Tucker, elementary and middle school computer
and science teacher, runs the robotics program in TA middle school together
with Mrs. Mallonee. “The boys come out with an interest in building and
programming robots. They can apply that knowledge to program other things,” he
says. “And it’s also fun! They enjoy the competition, which is a big event, and
they really appreciate that.”
I can definitely imagine it being fun to build a robot
from scratch and then watch it throw balls into a hoop. I can’t imagine it
being easy, though, and I’m sure one main skill that students gain from this
class is perseverance and resilience. As Mr. Tucker explains, “Some boys really
like to build a robot, see how it goes, and then learn how to better design it.
It takes a couple of tries to start over and then build something different
until you get a functioning robot. Students enjoy the part of building their own
robot and testing it out.” Mr. Tucker adds that TA’s first through third grades
also have a STEM program, and the elementary school is receiving robot kits
this year.
When I ask what he learned most from the class, Akiva
tells me, unequivocally, “teamwork.” I imagine that it takes a lot of
grit, determination, respect, and listening to others’ ideas to effectively
create a working robot from scratch.
As a computer programmer myself, I appreciate the
technological work that goes into inventions and robots, behind the scenes, but
I am still amazed at the breadth and depth of knowledge of our local schools’
teachers and students. I sense a passion for learning new skills, an air
of excitement, and a dose of healthy competition. The students are stretching
their minds while involved in a hands-on experience, and they have the
opportunity to go through an intensive process and see then see their end results.
Will you be sitting in your sukkah while it’s raining, a
few years down the line? I can’t answer that question, but now I know it is far
from impossible.
