STEM

PreSchool:

The PreSchool program also incorporates a STEM approach to their well-established Reggio Emilia play-based curriculum. In the youngest of students, design thinking and innovation is very much “at play,” quite literally. As these youngest students engage in play in their classrooms, trained PreSchool educators provide intentional directives, fostering an environment where students are encouraged to use their design skills to create and manipulate the tools and media around them.

Lower School:

Innovation, collaboration and creativity are the cornerstones of the Lower School’s Innovation Lab. The Innovation Lab provides a collaborative learning environment where students and teachers can gather together to create, invent, tinker, build, experiment, design, explore and discover using a variety of tools and materials. Open to all Lower School students from kindergarten through fourth grade, the Innovation Lab serves as a hands-on learning lab where students use the design process to think through and solve problems using everyday items. Teachers will also use this space to introduce new topics, encourage further exploration of a current unit, or as a recap to assess student learning.

Middle School:

The Middle School STEM Lab touts some of the latest technologies, including six Makerbot Sketch 3D printers, 20 MYNT 3D Printing Pens, and eight Dobot Robotic Arms — the world's first artificial intelligence-infused robot arm for K12 education. All students in fifth through eighth grade participate in some aspect of STEM education, whether one per trimester for fifth and sixth grade, or several times per week in seventh and eighth grade. Additionally, all eighth-grade students hone their design thinking skills while working through the engineering design process in the new Introduction to Engineering Technologies, previously only offered in High School. Each year, the curriculum will be introduced into increasingly lower grades, allowing students to develop their mastery of skills and become more prepared for the advanced engineering curriculum in the higher grades.

High School:

The High School's STEM programming has created an environment filled with confident and critical thinkers who are adaptable to the fast-paced needs of our ever-changing career world. Students are proficient in their use of the equipment in the state-of-the-art STEM Center, including 3D printers, CNC routers, and the laser cutter/engraver.  Additionally, at the High School’s annual Dr. Liebe Diamond STEM Day, Beth Tfiloh High School students explore a broad range of STEM careers with leading professionals from top area firms, startups, government agencies, universities, and hospitals, gaining insight regarding necessary education for specific career paths.