School Around Us Family & Friends Program Showcase at Mill Studio Arts

School Around Us is excited to announce a Family & Friends program showcase at Mill Studio Arts in Biddeford to share the unique STEAM learning experience of our students. This partnership, designed by Mill Studio Arts teacher & founder, Amy Goodness, integrates science and math with the arts highlighting the importance of each of these disciplines through hands-on activities that cover topics such as:

- S (Science) Earth Science, Space, fossils

- T (Technology) GPS, satellites, mapping, coding

- E (Engineering) Lego Robotics, design, mapping, building pro, innovating

- A (Arts) Design in clay, paint & other art forms,, concept design, creation, building models, creating visual representations, printmaking

- M (Math) concepts: place value, money, problem-solving, symmetry, geometry, large numbers, time

The middle spiral (ages 9-11) has worked on making data visible through graphing. They have worked collaboratively to develop group graphs and then independently to create pie charts that explain time. They are exploring the geologic time scale of Earth, creating visuals that help us fathom just how vast documented time is. They converted percentages into decimals to utilize protractors to draw pie charts of each segment of time and share findings. They went back in time to investigate and create fossil artifacts. They printed and cast animal and plant objects exploring the difference between fossil tracks and body casts.

The older spiral (ages 11-13) has focused on mapping and is using LEGO robotics to utilize sensors to observe color and distance and create communication output with light. They will be using this practice to create model satellites in our unit exploring navigation and mapping! They time traveled to the future, imagining and creating mapping machines for uncharted territory. Using LEGO robotics, the kids designed and built prototypes of unmanned sensing bots that can take in physical information and communicate that info back to humans for mapping. They are taking this knowledge forward as they better understand satellites and how they map and communicate to provide us with GPS.

This incredible initiative is funded by a grant from Onsemi Corporation, which is dedicated to driving innovations in automotive and industrial markets, focusing on megatrends like vehicle electrification and sustainable energy.