Meet This Year's Panelists!
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Let’s Go Fly a Kite! A STEAM Make-and-Take Activity

Region 4’s Let’s Go Fly a Kite! Make-and-Take activity was a soaring success. Librarians, teachers, and even a couple of students on summer break stopped to scour the tables and scoop up kite-making supplies they would use to design, build, and test their kite creations. Would they fly or flop?
There were two scheduled group launches and the weather outside was perfect: blue skies with just the right amount of blustery wind for a flight test. Some kite engineers decided to test their luck indoors and used the open space in the Merrell Center arena to skip, spin, or slow trot with string in hand and kites cutting through the air behind them. They flew!
Not only did the participants walk away with some homemade show-and-tell, but they also left with a colorful 8-page booklet that included ideas to support this activity in their classrooms no matter what subject they taught. How? The booklet featured dozens of middle school science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics TEKS in the booklet along with history, fun facts, and additional teacher resources. A bonus Technology Integration Activities page provided even more ideas to extend the lesson. Who knew making a kite could be a STEAM-driven activity?
So, will this be on the schedule for the 2024 STEAM Academy? Maybe. Or maybe something even more fun and fabulous is already in the works. Keep checking.
Planning for a Sweet Retirement

You are invited! Join us for a lunchtime dessert treat!
This presentation will provide an overview of the TX Teacher Retirement System and the options available to public school employees. This information is relevant to ALL educators, both new and experienced.
Presented by Jonathan Powell, Equitable Advisors.
Testimonials from the 2022 STEAM Academy
I started brainstorming how to adjust my art lessons to be more engaging from a STEAM perspective
and include movement.
I learned . . . how to implement design and planning into my STEM classroom.
I liked the STEMulating Design Challenges books and will encourage my campus to buy them.