Thomas Hart Benton S.T.E.M. Elementary
Vision
Creating a community where students live, learn and grow.
Mission
Benton will work with the community to create an environment that promotes learning through discovery, achieving through hands-on, real life inquiry and strives to have students become actively involved in the community in which they live.
S.T.E.M. stands for Science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Benton adopted the STEM emphasis three years ago to help promote engagement into these crucial areas of learning. We are working hard to integrate our STEM into everything that we do.
Science -
Sadly,
Science has fallen by the wayside over the years due to the push on standardize
testing. Here at Benton, we want to put emphasis back on the importance of
Science. We are very lucky to say that we have the resources to allow for
hands-on, real life inquiry. We have our STEM lab, our outdoor classroom area, and
our green house/garden area to use to learn and explore.
Technology-
We are
very fortunate to say that we have a 1:1 technology to student ratio here at
Benton. Each student with has a laptop or IPad available to them. Technology
can be a very effective and engaging learning tool.
Engineering-
Benton focuses on
Engineering is Elementary® (EiE) curriculum. EiE promotes
engineering and literacy among children through a research-based
and classroom-tested curriculum that integrates engineering and technology
with elementary science topics. Storybooks featuring children from a
variety of cultures and backgrounds introduce students to an
engineering problem. Students are then challenged to solve a problem
similar to that faced by the storybook character. Through a hands-on engineering
design challenge, students work in teams to apply their knowledge
of science and mathematics; use their inquiry and problem-solving
skills; and tap their creativity as they design, create, and improve
possible solutions.
Mathematics
Benton's
staff and board members, are currently working together to determine which
mathematics curriculum best fits with our STEM emphasis. In the meantime, we
have begun to implement ST Math. ST, Spatial Temporal Mathematics,
has been brought to us by the district. ST math is game-based software
that is designed to promote math comprehension and proficiency
through visual learning.
