Our Lady of Mount Carmel School is developing a STREAM program that benefits our students through an afterschool club supporting robotics and the First LEGO League Challenge (FLL).
According to the FLL website, “First LEGO League introduces science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to children through fun, exciting hands-on learning. First LEGO League participants gain real-world, problem-solving experiences through a guided, global robotics program, helping today’s students and teachers build a better future together.” In First LEGO League, students engage in hands-on STEM experiences, building confidence, growing their knowledge and developing habits of learning.
Mary Ann Alcaro, the seventh and eighth grade science teacher at OLMC, received a grant from a French-based global company, Schneider Electric, Inc. to fund the afterschool club. She collaborated with a number of colleagues and professionals in the community to help the students learn about real-world problems they are striving to solve to benefit their local and global communities.
Alcaro collaborated with Kevin Deissler, a STEM teacher at Klinger Middle School, who shared his gracious professionalism to explain how to get the FLL team off the ground. Alcaro and Barb Villalba laid the groundwork to execute the sessions at OLMC while Danielle Hudak, Marcus Villalba, Al Rauch, and Karen Rauch committed to aiding them in mentoring and coaching the students through the FLL Project Sparks activities.
A number of families assisted in organizing the Legos and a special thank you goes out to Mary Grace Bonitatis, Sherri Brinkman, the Hock family, the Buzzanca family, the Nocentino family, and the Spizzirri family.
The students are excited to code a set of new robots and assemble a plethora of Legos provided by Schneider Electric to prepare for a local FLL competition scheduled in December at Archbishop Wood High School via a virtual meeting. The students meet weekly to exercise core values, design robots, program the robots to complete a series of 17 missions, and investigate an innovation project that will solve a community problem wrapped around shipping essential and nonessential items safely, efficiently, and productively. The OLMC students are learning the value of STREAM, how to be inclusive, and how their voices can make a difference not only in the community but within the many communities that are tackling the FLL theme of Cargo Connection problems.
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