Matthew Henderson, Beau Lowman, and Mary Katherine Densmore

The team’s innovative teaching idea, “STEM Program,” focuses on increasing student engagement and proficiency schoolwide through STEM projects requiring a high level of critical thinking and teamwork skills. The team engaged students, especially from grades 5^th-11^th, in projects ranging from designing and building catapults and coolers to gardening and rocketry. This school year, the team plans to include projects for their students, such as taking apart a small gas engine to describe energy transformation. The program will provide students with real life, curriculum-focused problems that require teamwork, research, hands-on learning, and critical thinking to solve. Through different projects, Henderson and his team hope to mentally challenge students to create solutions to real-life problems.