STEM program gets boost in Camanche

May 23—CAMANCHE — New robots will make their way into Camanche Elementary School's third- and fourth-grade classrooms thanks to a local company's goal to fund STEM initiatives.

Sheryl Kennedy, a Camanche Elementary School teacher, received an ADM Cares grant of over $5,500 on Friday afternoon to fund the purchase for the STEM curriculum.

Also on that day, her students were afforded the opportunity to ask questions of three ADM engineers. Safety Specialist Travis Baker, Optimization and Analytics Engineer Bailley Thomas and Reliability Engineer Blake Bialas told them about what they do each day at ADM, why they wanted to become engineers, and what subjects in school were important for attaining their positions within the company.

They also spoke about the absence of a focus on STEM when each of them was in third or fourth grade.

"This program you guys are in is a really great thing," Bialas said. "Stick with it. You will use all the skills you're learning right now all through the rest of your life.'

Bialas then shared that he thought his own third or fourth grade class once might have once constructed robots out of cardboard. Kennedy, with the ADM Cares grant she received, will be able to provide five new SPIKE Prime robots for their Lego League program, as LEGO Education has announced that the EV3 robots that the students currently utilize will retire at the end of June.

Kennedy has been using the Lego League program in her classes for the past several years. That program introduces engineering and science concepts, as well as basic coding skills, to students all over the world. Kennedy and her students couldn't be more appreciative, especially since Kennedy notes the budget she'd been given for her room for the year came in at $75.

Many different tools the students in these classes use each day were actually gifts from ADM. With them, the students have had the opportunity to be awarded first place in Core Values at the State Lego League competition that was held at Iowa State University in Ames in early February and be nominated for the Global Innovation Award at a regional competition later in the month.

"If you can program something when you're 10 that impresses judges at State," Kennedy says, "because it's so intricate when it all works just the way it's supposed to work. Think of what you could do with that at ISU as a freshman or out in the career world."

Last year, Kennedy received the Iowa STEM Teacher Award from the Governor's Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Advisory Council. The award is given to six teachers each year who inspire students in these subjects. One way that Kennedy accomplishes this is by introducing her classes to professionals in various industries. ADM gave over $9,000 to Camanche Elementary and Middle schools in 2019 through the ADM Cares program.