Deconstruction Geography: A STEM Approach

Abstract

Strong teacher leaders help to ensure that middle level ideals have fruition in actual practice as demonstrated when featured teachers collaborated to open a new middle school focused on STEM education.IntroductionWalking into a seventh grade geography classroom one day filled me with excitement and a lot of questions. direction will this project take this year? How will students' hands and minds come together to reach the essential understandings? How can one facilitate so many thoughts, so much tinkering, and active exploration into a coherent journey of learning? How can learning experiences and units have accessibility for the multiple levels of seventh grade physical, mental, and emotional development? All of these questions had an acknowledgement of support when juxtaposed with the building administrator's words, Real learning is often messy.The previous evening of preparation resulted in lining the back counter in the classroom with old printers, fax machines, DVD players, VCRs, computers, vacuum cleaners. Smaller artifacts such as remote controls, alarm clocks, handheld games, and cellular phones were placed at the front of the room. When the students arrived, their curiosity was evident. Their hands were busy; the Do not touch signs ignored in the flurry of excitement. The students had heard about this project from the upperclassmen, and questions shot out of their mouths before their minds fully processed them. What are we doing? Can I take the vacuum apart? Who brought the computers? What does all of this have to do with class? Answering no one at the risk of being bombarded further, the teacher said, It will all be clear very soon. Take your seats please. It's time to start Deconstruction Geography.This article will define the engineering design process used to create an integrated curriculum at STEM Center Middle School, and it features the planning, implementation, and revision of the Deconstruction Geography unit. The article that follows also includes a description of the middle school where Deconstruction Geography was born and where STEM forms a central focus for the entire school.The STEM centerThe Science Technology Engineering and (STEM) Center opened in the fall of 2009 as a way to relieve overcrowding at the district's only other middle school. The building that houses the STEM Center has a robust, cold war era construction that had been repurposed many times, and now its service as a STEM middle school proves that 21st century learning can happen in any environment. Despite its overcrowding, the district's original middle school is newer and larger than its STEM alternate, but students opt to enroll in the STEM Center largely because of a one-to-one netbook initiative that put a small laptop computer in the hands of every student. The teachers at the new STEM Center were a mix of volunteer transfers and new hires, empowered by the opportunity to create a school from the ground up. With a mission of a student-centered, dream-oriented educational program, the teachers came together before the school year began with documents including This We Believe {National Middle School Association [NMSA], 2010) and Partnership for the 21st century Education's Framework for 21st Century Skills (2011). While each teacher brought unique talents and knowledge, all shared a value for collaboration and a genuine desire to provide studentcentered education grounded in the principles of middle school philosophy that included interdisciplinary teacher teams and connected instructional planning. Training for the implementation of the STEM curriculum was provided by Valley City State University. The workshop centered on the Building Math series from the Museum of Science, Boston (2012). The connected ideas present in this curriculum gave the teams a place to begin.The STEM approachThe experience of a metadisciplinary (Werth, 2003), fully connected, and integrated curriculum was transformative for the teachers at the STEM Center. …