

Ask HN: STEM partners for middle school in Lakebay, Washington - goebelj

Hey, I am Jeri Goebel, principal at Key Peninsula Middle School. For 11 years, we have been a NASA Explorer school, offering students, staff, parents and the community many aerospace experiences, events, staff development, and student trips.  Over the past three years, our school has become a STEM school offering interesting classes such as CAD, Forensics, Multi-Media Productions, Robotics, and Intro to Manufacturing.<p>My problem is that I am looking for new partners and ideas to help work with and guide our teachers in offering more rigorous and interesting projects.  Currently we offer your typical egg drop exercise and other programs I find are limited in rigor and provided limited in-depth scientific experiences.<p>Could the Y-Combinatory community please help with directing me toward more interesting group activities? Also, are any of you in the area willing to help direct some of these activities?
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crazypyro
Take a look at FIRST robotics, if you haven't already. They have 3 different
leagues. FTC (possibly FLL) might be the most relevant for a middle school.
I'm not sure how big it is on the West Coast, but as an alumni of a high
school team, it was definitely a big motivator for me and choosing a software
engineer career.

It also incorporates a lot of different disciplines, from CAD to software
engineering (programming) to mechanical design.

[http://www.usfirst.org/](http://www.usfirst.org/)

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goebelj
That is a great recommendation. I found the local WA chapter,
[https://www.firstwa.org/](https://www.firstwa.org/), and will contact them.

Do you have another other ideas as well?

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crazypyro
I'm not sure how wide spread Project Lead the Way is, but that was also a
great program that my school had when I was younger. They appear to have a
middle school curriculum, but I have no experience in education, so not sure
how wide spread it is.

[https://www.pltw.org/our-programs/](https://www.pltw.org/our-programs/)

