SCHOOL WEBSITE

PROGRAM(S) PARTICIPATED IN: Sprint 2014, Solution 2014-2015

TEAM

Steven Rogg, Director of STEM Education
Julia Gonzalez, STEM I Teacher
Erika Mortensen, STEM I Teacher
Maddy Peterek, STEM I Teacher
D’Andre Weaver, Principal

ABOUT THE SCHOOL

School Type: Selective enrollment
Grades served: 9-12
Enrollment: 933

PROBLEM

Our students are representative of demographic groups that have been historically underrepresented in STEM fields even while opportunities in STEM-related careers are projected to expand dramatically.

SOLUTION

Our specific innovation this year is the creation, implementation, ongoing development, evaluation, and refinement of the STEM-I curriculum that connects integrated mathematics to transdisciplinary science for all of our freshmen students throughout the full year.

IMPACT 

“In our first chapter in math, students led an almost 90 minute conversation/debate about how to best describe patterns. We went through a variety of parent functions and students were competing with each other to be the one to figure out how to best describe the more difficult functions. As the teacher, I contributed very little to the conversation because they were doing such a good idea of responding to each other’s ideas. I’ve never had a class so engaged and I’ve taught seniors and juniors in the past who didn’t have such a strong understanding of the patterns made by functions.” –Erika Mortensen, Teacher at Brooks