You supported the DonorsChoose. You celebrated when the project was fully funded. You followed the updates on Facebook and listened to me yak yak yak about this passion project (sorry about all the exclamation points….sort of). And now, finally, you get to see what it’s all about.

Last Friday, Johnson’s brand new engineering and maker club, the Johnson STEAM Team, met for the first time. What’s with the STEAM? You may recognize the acronym from school meetings or educational articles – it stands for Science Technology Engineering Arts and Math, and teachers, administrators, and librarians all over the world are obsessed with the way it gets students engaged, excited, and passionate about science. STEAM curriculum gets students thinking in a new way and sharing meaningful, hands-on experiences for a whole new kind of learning.

So here’s our recipe. Take that STEAM mentality, add in Johnson’s brand new MakerSpace, toss in a few volunteers from the University of Virginia’s chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon (a professional and social sorority composed of female engineering and technical science students), add a pinch of crazy librarian and shake vigorously… you’ve got yourself a STEAM Team.

During our STEAM Team time, we have three missions:

DESIGN AND CODE

BUILD AND REBUILD

SOLVE AND FIX

Keep an eye on the blog to learn more about STEAM Team’s upcoming challenges, lessons, special visitors, and hands-on learning experiences.

Visit Johnson often? Stop by the library to check out our new MakerSpace display and see more examples of our exciting STEAM Team work.

Thank you for helping make the Learning Leopard Library’s MakerSpace and STEAM Team a reality!