Jimmy Gray, III, Natalie Nylund, Dana Wanek, Dena Badal, and Rachel Cato

The team’s innovative teaching idea, “STEM Friday,” focuses on implementing new and exciting activities to expose Kindergarten students to coding and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), in order to build on those lifelong skills. According to the team, the students at Westgate Elementary enjoy using programmable coding floor robots, but there is currently only one available. With the Voya grant, the team is able to purchase more robots along with other types of STEM manipulatives for everyday use. The team’s aim is to create a “STEM Fridays” activity where the programs would be leveraged to enable students to work together on unique challenges, code on computers and use hands on manipulatives to explore with other students.