STEM+

Primary school students hone their STEM+ mindset at the earliest level through our Reggio-inspired Pre-K program. They conduct research and carry out experiments based on their lives, experiences, and interests, and they learn to document their process. This carries forward through kindergarten and includes significant time to build and engineer both creatively and with purpose. In addition to the collaborative approach of Science, Art, and EdTech teachers to ensure meaningful, interdisciplinary learning experiences, students are challenged through long-term projects such as MyMachine and Capstone.

With the move to the Middle School comes increased and enhanced STEM+ possibilities. Students visit the Middle School science labs more frequently, and they explore a more formalized scientific process. They begin to use laptops to think computationally and harness digital tools to construct new knowledge and create new things. Opportunities to engage with programming and robotics open avenues to collaborate and innovate, and access to fabrication tools like 3D Printers and a laser cutter allows students to imagine solutions to beautiful questions. Middle school culminates with the 8th Grade Science Project- and long-term inquiry that offers students the opportunity to use what they’ve learned in science and across the curriculum to experiment and engineer their way to designing and conducting scientific research activities that are student-centered and reflective of the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of science in labs around the world.

Building on the strong STEM+ foundation developed at the Primary and Middle Schools, Upper School students are challenged to explore how their STEM+ skills and habits of the mind can support who they are hoping to become. While all students take core courses in the sciences and mathematics, they are also invited to choose electives that resonate most deeply with them.

This flexibility allows some students to take a deep dive into computer programming while others undertake collaborative year-long scientific research projects or explore applications of environmental science in the local MKA and Montclair communities. As they explore the world around them, students are encouraged to ask beautiful questions and follow the path those questions inspire. The robotics team challenged itself with the question: How can we design a robot to grasp a bar and lift itself off the ground? As they explored this question, the team learned how to collaborate effectively, communicate complex technical ideas, and gain insight from obstacles, revising and reworking their ideas along the way. In the upper-level Science Research Honors course, students begin by asking their own questions—ones that don’t yet have answers. Working together as a research team, they share data, refine their procedures, and build their collective understanding through each iteration. Whichever path a student chooses to venture down, they are asked to learn by doing, and as they wonder, dream, create, and realize, they move further along their journey of discovering who they are and how they can use their developing STEM+ skills to serve as a leader in their community.