Canton Public Schools: October 21 School Committee Meeting Recap: STEAM Week, CHS And GMS School Improvement Plans (SIPs), GMS Water Dam ...

Press release from Canton Public Schools:

Leah Comins

October 29, 2021

CANTON — Interim Superintendent Derek Folan would like to share with the school community several notable updates and information provided at the October 21 Canton School Committee meeting.

A recording of the full meeting can be viewed here.

Additional meeting materials, including the Interim Superintendent’s Report and all documents shared at the meeting are available here. 

October 18-21 is recognized as Massachusetts STEM week, and in Canton, STEAM week. STEAM stands for Science Technology Engineering Art and Math. The theme for this year’s CPS STEAM week was the same as 2019: “See yourself in STEAM”. Throughout STEAM week, all grades participated in hands-on, collaborative exploration in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. A summary of all of the District’s STEAM week activities can be found here.

As part of the elementary level STEAM week, K-2 students participated in activities in which they learned about different careers in STEAM. Careers included zoologists and the study of animals, architects and how they design buildings and more. Each profession had hands-on activities for the students to participate in. For grades 3-4, students had all sorts of hands-on challenges as well that went into greater depth about STEAM professions. Overall, all K-4 students had opportunities through center-based learning and activities to explore STEM-related careers, while art teachers focused on STEAM-related projects.

Grade 5 once again partnered with i2Learning to provide educational materials for each classroom during STEAM week. The materials were used to supplement i2Learning’s ecosystem unit and as part of the unit students worked to solve The Mystery at Loon Lake. The Mystery at Loon Lake is an interactive project-based learning unit that engages students as scientists, engineers and researchers while they learn about invasive species and food chains in an ecosystem.

Pre-K students participated in STEAM week during the week of Oct. 25-29. The week focused on pumpkin-themed STEAM activities with students estimating and measuring the weight and height of pumpkins, connecting pumpkins to literature, painting pumpkins and more.

The District would like to thank Pre-K-5 STEM Coordinator Sara Donovan for all of her hard work in preparing and executing STEAM week at CPS. Sara organized STEAM week materials for all K-5 grade levels and created a webpage with resources for students, teachers and families to use during STEAM week and throughout the year. To view the website, click here.

STEAM week at GMS was postponed until further notice as a result of the school switching to remote learning due to the ongoing building issues. During X-blocks and art classes throughout STEAM week, students had the opportunity to engage in daily STEAM-related activities, utilizing components of the units from the STEM week i2learning materials.

At CHS, students participated in STEAM-related in-class activities and after school opportunities were also available for students on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Opportunities included learning about cryptography, Hour of Code, origami, digital wellness and learning about green screens.

The District would also like to recognize all art teachers who assisted with CPS’s STEAM Week education and the digital learning specialists who provided opportunities for all students to engage in fun activities with innovative technology resources.

Project Lead the Way

The District has received a Project Lead the Way grant to support STEAM instruction at GMS and CHS. At GMS, the grant was used to redesign the Technology & Engineering course to now focus on three lessons including Introduction to Design, Solid Modeling and Design Challenge. As a result of the redesign, there is more guidance than instruction and students have more hands-on activity. The grant, along with the revised schedule at the middle school this year, also allowed GMS to make the Technology & Engineering course a full-year course for all students.

At CHS, the Project Lead the Way grant helps to support engineering courses including Computer Science and Engineering. The District was also able to undercut the budget after reviewing STEM courses and purchase five new 3-D printers for students to use to assist their STEM education.

At the School Committee meeting, CHS Principal Jeff Sperling presented the CHS School Improvement Plan, while Interim Assistant Superintendent Sarah Shannon, Interim GMS Principal Dr. Mike Green, and GMS Assistant Principal Jim Spillane presented the GMS School Improvement Plan. All plans will be accessible on the District website.

• Grade 10: 93.5% of the class (203 of 217 students)
• Grade 11: 91.5% of the class (195 of 213 students)
• Grade 12: over 99% of colleges are NOT requiring tests of the Class of 2022 but 98 students still chose to participate in testing.

This press release was produced by Canton Public Schools. The views expressed here are the author’s own.