Hoover STEM Academy Gets to Work in New Home

Students in the Hoover STEM Academy get to work on the opening day in their new home.

When Hoover High School received one of the first STEM grants awarded by the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council less than a year ago, the mindset of the school’s STEM Academy Director, Maureen Griffin, immediately shifted from theory to drawing board. Her mandate was to put the money toward designing the classroom of the future; to create space within the school’s four walls that is outside the box.

Several months later Griffin and chemistry teacher Eric Hall presented at the Iowa Statewide STEM Conference, along with the other grant recipients, and delivered a progress report on what they were up to.

Friday morning a class of Hoover geometry students was turned loose in what used to be called Room 2095 but is destined to become who knows what, the Think Tank, maybe?

Educators everywhere want kids to buy into the notion that school is cool. Room 2095 is where they’ll pay up in the currency of attendance and attention.

Griffin and Hall beamed as they put on last-minute finishing touches and even dialed up some mood music while waiting for teacher Alex Caskey and her class of 25 to arrive. When they did a momentary sensation that was equal parts Christmas morning and Hollywood premiere rippled through the room as groups spontaneously broke out around the interactive whiteboard, the hi-def flat screen monitors and the pods of contemporary and task-oriented furniture.

Caskey worked the room like a star on the red carpet, visions of students skyping with college professors or engineers in China dancing in her head.

“We’re the first grant recipient to actually get up and running,” Griffin bragged. “This is so neat but more importantly it’s intentional. Everything we’ve incorporated is for a purpose.” Even the clock on the wall has a periodic table twist with magnesium (Mg) where 12 typically is, Hydrogen (H) in place of the 1, etc.

Working in consultation with vendors like Storey Kenworthy, Griffin and her STEM staff established their priorities for the reinvented space. Like a kitchen is designed for storing, preparing and serving food they wanted a room conducive to:

• Brainstorming
• Pair work/mentoring
• Personal technology
• Project space
• Video conferencing
• Large group work

What they got are whiteboard tabletops that can be scribbled upon and erased; bouncy, stimulating stools that resemble push-tacks (“Zenergy Balls”) arrayed in front of a large-screen monitor; upholstered armchairs equipped with panels that slide into and out of place as their occupants require a desktop or don’t; a curved countertop with tall stools; an island in front of an interactive whiteboard that’s like a picture window on the world. Besides tapping into the internet via the magic board, users can draw/write on it like Tom Cruise in Minority Report or CNN’s John King on Election Night.

Griffin and Hall have already started calling different wings of the room The Lounge and The Pit. What it lacks in terms of the wall-mounted pencil sharpeners, dusty erasers and gridded seating charts of the past is more than offset by the futuristic visions it will foster.

And that’s not all!

Downstairs Chris Knee teaches Principles of Engineering in Room 1310. Last year there was a bank of computer terminals not unlike what you might expect to see in a public library. Knee presided from up in front of them with the students pretty much fixed at their stations.

Not anymore.

There’s still an ample bank of desktop computers. But there are also laptops, a 3D printer and a big space filled with convertible tables designed for collaborations like the ones going on Friday morning while Knee’s class worked on assembling devices that demonstrated the principle of mechanical advantage.

And Knee has a helper, too. No, it’s not a student teacher. Bob Shoemaker, a retired engineer from the real world helps out, courtesy of a program funded by the National Science Foundation and Iowa State University. Shoemaker last worked in the private sector for United Technologies. They were in the business of fuel injectors for jet engines. Shoemaker has patents registered in his name and lots of contacts. Besides helping students with the fundamentals of levers and pulleys he puts them in touch with former colleagues who talk with them about what life as a working engineer is really like and what employers are looking for in freshly trained and graduated employees.

“I’m from the slide rule generation and a small town,” Shoemaker said, as his surname implies. “These kids will start college with a leg up,” he added, should they decide on pursuit of STEM careers. They’re already earning college credit in Knee’s class.

That’s what sophomore Jordan Ritter intends. “I’m going to be a mechanical engineer,” he declared, sounding unequivocal. “And this area is so much better than last year,” he went on, grinning and swearing he wasn’t just saying that because Griffin and Shoemaker were nearby.

He’s not alone. Griffin, who seems more like a collegiate department chair than a high school administrator all the time, says 165 kids in grades 9-11 are enrolled in the Hoover STEM Academy this year compared to the original cohort of 102 in 2012.

Shoemaker’s not alone either. Griffin says he’s just one of six retirees or doctoral graduate students that are on board this year at Hoover/Meredith through the NSA/ISU program, helping out with STEM classes like TA’s often do in introductory classes at major universities.

Besides the state STEM grant Hoover benefits from partnerships like the one they forged with their neighbor, Pioneer Hi-Bred. And they’re looking for more. Another STEM classroom will serve as a model. Community visitors will be brought in for tours to see if they might want to sponsor a similar space in their business name to help train their future employees.

A  STEM Gala will be held on Wednesday, September 17^th from 6:00-8:00 PM at Hoover. The public is invited to attend and learn more about the STEM Academy and get a firsthand look at the new futuristic classrooms made possible by the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council Grant.

Maybe the best way to describe what’s happening at Hoover these days is to invoke a popular old board game and phrase from the past: Go to the Head of the Class. Except there’s no front row anymore; there’s no back row to hide in either. There’s The Lounge. There’s The Pit. Find a spot and get to work.

If the problem used to be how to get kids to come to school the new one might be how to get them to leave.

Photos of the new Hoover STEM Academy