By Tyler Hoskins, KBTX | November 15, 2022 read it >
Hearne Elementary School students had the opportunity to go aboard Learning Undefeated’s Mobile STEM Lab on Tuesday.
The mobile STEM lab is traveling across Texas to provide science, technology, engineering and math experiences to students. During the STEM lab’s visit, Hearne Elementary students learned about invasive species, circuits, and biomimicry. Students removed “lettuce seeds” from turf grass, created a wiggling robot that lights up, and constructed a prosthetic hand inspired by nature.
Katie Askelson, Learning Undefeated’s education outreach coordinator, said the mobile lab provides young students with their first taste of engineering.
“Some things that were not around 10-20 years ago are going to be jobs, so we need to start sparking those interest in students early and start catching back up with the world, because we’re a little behind in science and math right now,” Askelson said.
The lessons taught in the lab are TEKS aligned and approved by the Texas Education Agency, allowing teachers to take the lessons directly into their classrooms.
“This allows us to spark the interest of students, but also spark the interest of teachers to maybe use some more hands-on activities in their classroom,” Askelson said.
Askelson said Learning Undefeated’s main mission is to serve schools in underserved communities or find schools that might not have STEM opportunities.
“A lot of the time, it’s the rural schools or inner city schools where they’re not able to have to really cool science lab come and visit them or they don’t have the facilities,” Askelson said. “We’re able to bring the facility to them and kind of do a field trip in the parking lot.”
