STEM Road Runner Lab

Hello STEM Families, 

Please keep in mind that the temperatures are changing with the seasons across all facets of campus life.  Whether during PE, Recess, Outdoor Education, or in transit from one building to the other—our students are typically outside multiple times each day. It would be wise for your child to come prepared for different weather conditions and inevitable temperature swings.  

Thank you to everyone who has provided donations of recycled materials for student projects across campus. The RR Lab is packed, and classroom projects are well supplied. 

Hello SASM Families, 

I hope you all had a wonderful summer, and am looking forward to working with our students again this year! 

The RoadRunner Lab will begin this year with a focus on routines, expectations, and school culture. Students will be introduced to, or refamiliarized with, the practices within the RR Lab that lead to student success and achievement. Reasonable boundaries and limitations will be outlined and enforced to reaffirm our collective commitment to a culture of inquiry, creativity, and student health/safety. 

After our introductory period is complete, students will be working in the school garden and/or outdoor spaces on learning tasks appropriate to their level of development. Continuing with our school tradition of environmental science instruction through outdoor education, there will be weeks dedicated to student learning as manifested through gardening, campus service/beautification, or direct instruction utilizing the realia of our unique campus setting.   During outdoor education sessions families may want to consider sending their students to school prepared for the weather conditions; a hat, water bottle, and clothing items fitting for the temperature. Ultimately, these are items that are beneficial to consider year-round to be prepared for physical education, the playground, and campus events which may take place outdoors. 

The RR Lab will continue with the practice of receiving donations of recycled materials for student repurposing.  This does not only give students the opportunity to execute the design process at an age appropriate level within the RR Lab, as these materials are also used by various grade level classrooms for projects throughout the school year.  Without these materials, many of the engaging seasonal tasks tied to project based learning units across campus could not take place. 

Student safety is an absolute priority.  Due to this, items donated must be clean of food debris in order to eliminate the risk of allergen exposure. Unsure of what is acceptable? I’ll look through everything myself before providing for student use, so don’t worry.  The most popular items for student use, based on their ability to manipulate materials, are paper-board and clamshell plastic. Examples of paperboard include paper-towel/toilet-paper rolls, cereal boxes, tissue boxes, etc. Examples of clamshell or light-duty plastic include produce containers (like berries or salad greens often are packaged in), yogurt/sour cream containers, single use water bottles, and what consumer electronics or small goods are packaged in for hanging on store display hooks.