What’s Right With Our School: Signal Centers STEM Program
CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – A solid background in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math is becoming more essential every day. Signal Centers are helping some of their youngest students get a head start on a bright future. That’s a far-reaching example of “What’s Right With Our Schools”.
“Here at Signal Centers, we are a DHS licensed child care facility. And we serve about 120 children with a wide range of abilities. We believe in inclusion early childhood education. So we believe that all children regardless of their ability or limitation deserve the access and the right to high quality early child care,” Mary Catherine Epstein, Assistant Dir. Children’s Services, Signal Centers said.
“So last year we decided that we wanted to find a way to challenge our students and we opted to bring in STEAM enrichment. So steam stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. And we hired on a lead teacher to take on that responsibility of providing STEAM lessons to all of the children we serve here; ranging from infants all the way up to age five,” Epstein said.
“I think it’s very important because everything has to do with science, technology, engineering, math, and art. So, I think it’s the world goes on. Learning it earlier will make it easier for them later on. I think that they think that it’s just fun activities right now, but later when they learn the science and stuff behind all the activities that we do, they’ll realize, oh, I did this when I was in preschool or I got to do this kind of experiment at STEAM before. So, like one student, he just realized that the shadow with the flashlight and he was holding them both up and he actually saw the shadow and he kept cutting it on and off and on and off. Yeah,” Trinity Beckett, Signal Centers Lead Teacher said.
“We are able to provide them with opportunities to explore, create, build, and navigate,” Epstein said.
“We’re working to encourage that curiosity and help them learn to ask questions and discover new information and just see what the world has to offer,” Epstein said.
“Coming from Hamilton County Schools, Steam is a huge initiative in the district. It’s something that again just promotes o overall learning. It helps children learn to challenge, create, explore, and navigate their environments, ask questions, be curious, be active and engaged learners. And we wanted to make sure that we here at Signal Centers, we’re doing our part to help pursue that initiative, especially at such a young age. We’re just hoping to teach them and help them, show them that learning can be fun and hands-on, and learning doesn’t always look like we’re sitting at the carpet and going through a lesson. We can be exploring looking using flashlights with our hands and just navigating and and exploring our environment,” Epstein said.
