'Coding since kindergarten': Hartland sets sights on STEM

Patricia Alvord, Livingston Daily
·2 min read

HARTLAND — To give students at Hartland Consolidated Schools even more opportunities this year, the district has expanded their science, technology, engineering and mathematics program from K-4 to include fifth to seventh-grade students.

According to HCS Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Dave Minsker, the district has talked about launching a STEM program for younger students for the last 10 years. With their 2020 bond, the district did just that.

"We wanted to offer our students a deeper, more robust STEM, do things that students in science and math don't usually do. Those two content areas we have are tied by the standards for the state of Michigan, so we have to do certain things and teach a certain way, but we wanted to offer these great opportunities at the lower level so they can have higher critical thinking skills," Minsker told The Daily.

To give students at Hartland Consolidated Schools even more opportunities this year, the district has expanded their science, technology, engineering and mathematics program from K-4 to include fifth to seventh-grade students.
To give students at Hartland Consolidated Schools even more opportunities this year, the district has expanded their science, technology, engineering and mathematics program from K-4 to include fifth to seventh-grade students.

The lab is offered to elementary school students as an elective. Students participate in their elective for a whole week, rotating through art, physical education, music and STEM.

With such a young group of students, HCS Science Instructional Coach Colin Costello said the district first had to determine what STEM is. They came up with three main focus areas: science, engineering and design.

Nicole Mitchell's kindergarten class at Round Elementary School practices engineering skills with teacher Jennifer Hull.
Nicole Mitchell's kindergarten class at Round Elementary School practices engineering skills with teacher Jennifer Hull.

Because they have a whole week, students can build and rebuild, make mistakes, and learn something new.

"Even kindergartners, thinking in a sequence and putting that into a robot, a really basic one, and by the time they're in fourth grade, they can do some really complicated variables," Costello said.

Over the last few years, Minsker, Costello and HCS Math Instructional Coach Annette Macfarlane have seen great success.

"We wanted to make sure we kept it going," Minsker said.

The district expanded to Hartland Farms Intermediate and Hartland Middle School at Ore Creek this year.

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Macfarlane said the goal is to eventually do away with classes like intro to programming, since students will have been coding since kindergarten.

— Contact reporter Patricia Alvord at palvord@livingstondaily.com.

This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: 'Coding since kindergarten': Hartland sets sights on STEM