Energy and excitement course through the minds of young students as they walk into the new Spark Lab, a space where students from Pre-K to Lower School have the opportunity to learn, experiment and grow.

     Replacing the Wonder Studio — an external program leasing space at Shorecrest — the Spark Lab is one of the school’s newest additions. Designed to introduce students to STEAM fields, faculty plan on taking full advantage of it.  

     “We wanted to make sure that from Pre-K all the way up to 12th grade [that] there’s one whole STEAM strand that runs through. That way, students get early exposure to design thinking, coding, robotics and digital citizenship,” LS Steam and Technology Teacher Katy Deegan said.

     According to the Space Foundation, learning about STEAM enhances students’ creative, collaborative, critical thinking and entrepreneurial skills. With those ideas in mind, it became imperative for students to have a place to put them into action.

     In the past, STEAM-oriented lessons were taught in the library, meaning students and teachers had to be more conscientious about their environment. “Its nice to have just a space where the kids can be loud and do the things we need to do and give the kids more freedom without interrupting others,” Deegan said. 

     Deegan and many other teachers have already begun using the Spark Lab for projects. Fourth grade students recently finished an egg drop challenge, where they made contraptions to prevent eggs from breaking when dropped from the top floor of Charger Commons. From it, they learned how to improve their critical time and cost management skills while fostering an interest in innovation.

  “Students are really excited to come here,” Deegan said. “They get to be creative, they get to problem solve and they learn how to collaborate and attack challenges together.”