Borrowing from Lego to build on education
Middle schoolers in the Fountain Valley School District are about to get a leg up in the evolution of science education.
More technically, it’s a Lego up.
The toy company that inspired generations of creative imagination with its iconic interlocking plastic bricks is focusing on the business of education at least as much as amusement.
Lego Mindstorms are small, simple computers typically encased in a lightweight 10-inch cube. The build-it-yourself systems have steadily infiltrated science curricula in schools across the country since 1998.
This fall, all three Fountain Valley district middle schools will offer a robotics elective using the Lego technology.
Hundreds of students at Fulton, Masuda and Talbert middle schools will be exposed to the hands-on program, which was funded by a $21,000 grant from the Fountain Valley Educational Foundation.
“They will learn everything from programming to strategic planning to a start-up aspect of engineering,” said Nicola Weiss, the outgoing president of the foundation and a former district board member.
“We had a pretty successful year with fundraising,” she added, “that gave us a nice additional cushion of funding a start-up program like this.”
The initial grant is split evenly at $7,000 for each of the three schools and covers the cost of eight to 10 Mindstorm kits per school, plus training for instructors. Weiss said the program’s maintenance costs will be much less in subsequent years.
Supt. Marc Ecker said the robotics program would not be possible without the financial backing of the foundation, which he described as “the overarching support of the entire district,” building on the efforts of residents and business owners since 1982.
“The foundation’s board has been comprised of parents, certainly,” Ecker said. “It’s been comprised of community members at large, people who don’t have students in our schools but want to support our schools.”
Added Weiss: “We are getting a lot more vocal businesses on board because they’re starting to realize that we need to support our schools in order to keep our community alive and growing, so that people want to move here.”
Hyundai Motors America, Kingston Technology, Rainbow Environmental Services and Mimi’s Jewelry are cited as local partners that have invested in the foundation.
The robotics program is the latest extension of the district’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum, which is picking up steam. In fact, Fountain Valley is adding arts to the core instruction and an ‘A’ to the acronym, producing STEAM.
“We wanted support programs in this district that would benefit a larger portion of the students,” explained Weiss. “We felt the STEAM education was going to impact all the kids in our district.”
A robotics pilot program developed by Talbert science teacher Viet Nguyen serves as a blueprint for the classes that will be taught districtwide next year.
“What we’re trying to do in the STEAM academy is we’re trying to give them a variety of experiences,” said Nguyen, who’s students tested robotics at the Dana Point Ocean Institute, a movie animation studio and the Solar Decathlon, a solar-powered housing design competition for collegians.
“Especially kids today. They need that variety because they’ll lose that attention if you just do one thing the whole year.”
Nguyen said it’s important for middle schoolers to get a head start coding various programs for the Mindstorm robots. The designs enable simple tasks like cleaning ocean debris, collecting soil samples and taking water temperatures at different depths.
“Just the very exposure to these opportunities and activities, that does lead not just to high school but hopefully a STEAM career and at the very least to become just an informed citizen,” Nguyen said.