Ms. Adrienne Spano

Math/Science Instructional Coach and Supervisor

In order to prepare students for 21st century careers, the River Edge School District has embarked on a two-year project to design and implement a STEAM program. STEAM focuses on the fusion of SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, ART and MATH. We are committed to providing students with opportunities to develop a variety of skills through inquiry-based and integrative learning.

We began that process of transforming each lab space into a STEAM lab where students collaborate, create, discover, and apply their critical thinking skills to solve problems. We are excited to share some of the work our River Edge staff and students have completed thus far, and we look forward to many more engaging activities.

Our very own technology coach, Ms. Cardia, put forth her graphic design skills to help liven up our labs with eye catching, informative posters! This was a collaborative effort that truly reflected the STEAM mindset; staff members combined knowledge of art, technology, and the content areas to design meaningful posters.

At this point in time, the posters highlight the curricular units of study, engineering design process, characteristics of STEAM education, and inspiring individuals who are well known for their contributions to the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.

As time goes on, River Edge students will be involved in the creation and printing of educational posters using the poster maker machines!

Check out one of our exciting technological features...

AURASMA is an Augmented Reality app that helps us interact with the world in a new way. Our captivating posters come to life with animations and videos helping us learn beyond what is on the poster itself.

In our labs, we can scan the "River Edge is full STEAM Ahead" poster with the Aurasma app and a video about James Watt will begin playing on the iPad!

This year's graduating class helped kick off our STEAM program! With the help of our art teachers, Ms. DelGuidice and Ms. Attardi, students worked together to design a train that would help us learn about STEAM while sparking curiosity and spreading excitement throughout Cherry Hill and Roosevelt schools. Each cart was filled with information, symbols, and original drawings!

As we provide opportunities for students to explore and apply a variety of skills throughout the STEAM challenges, we want to show them that these skills can be used in many careers. The cards displayed around the room expose students to a multitude of careers and skill sets, and they highlight how the activities we do in school relate to jobs in the real world.

River Edge teachers participated in STEAM professional development to learn meaningful approaches to teaching and learning in the 21st century. We are committed to cultivating students who are problem finders and problem solvers, and we will continue to engage in activities to bring back to the classroom!

Teachers faced a challenge of creating a cooler to preserve medicine. Check out our teams working to prevent an ice cube from melting and keeping the medicine dry!

Oh no! The ice melted! We need to identify the problems with this solution and brainstorm ways to revise and improve it.

Most of the ice was insulated and kept its solid state, and the medicine was dry!

Take a look at how our Kindergarten students work to solve problems that occur in some of our favorite fairy tales! Students were challenged to build a bridge that keeps 3 goats safe from the troll in "Three Billy Goats Gruff". Soon they will build a chair that Goldilocks can't break and design houses to protect the "Three Little Pigs" from the wolf!

Students from varying grade levels have been visiting our STEAM labs to design and create original products as they relate to their Social Students and Language Arts units.

As students learn about bridges, vehicles, houses, and buildings, they are drawing, planning, and designing models to serve specific purposes. Check out our Kindergarteners bringing their sketches to life while third graders create products and write out detailed procedural instructions for their fellow engineers to follow!

Fourth grade students design and build a dam that will stop a flood from reaching a community of houses. They've had to continuously revise parts of their plan because the houses are getting wet during many of the tests. Groups have been able to make improvements towards a better solution, but they are still working on creating an effective solution to protect the houses from a flood.

Fifth grade students design, build, and test structures to withstand different types of natural disasters, including earthquakes and hurricanes!

As sixth grade students learn about matter, they investigate the relationship between an atom's composition and the physical and chemical properties of that particular substance. Teams worked together to carry out different experiments and students individually developed atomic models in their own creative way!