Area Educators Tour Darnaby Elementary For Its PLTW Showcase

Darnaby Elementary School students demonstrated some of their critical thinking skills this morning as part of a demonstration of the Project Lead The Way curriculum during a tour of the school for touring educators from Tulsa Public Schools, Berryhill Public Schools and Chickasha Public Schools.

Presentations centered around robotics, design explorations, infections of the body, life cycles, and energy explorations as Darnaby gave a taste of what they have learned to educators, who are considering implementation of the program at their school site.

Principal Chris Reynolds met with the visitors in the media center for a brief history and overview of the STEM curriculum before taking a tour around the school, which was facilitated by Darnaby’s STEM coordinator MacKensie Mathison.

Shea Ludwig, executive director of the Union Schools Education Foundation, which is a partner in Darnaby’s success, and Teacher Leadership Specialist Rebecka Peterson, who also happens to be the 2023 National Teacher of the Year, also toured the school. Peterson also delivered remarks after the tour, touting the benefits of Darnaby’s curriculum.

The tour started in the science labs as students demonstrated some of their things they have learned with coding robots and robotics before moving on to younger students who were engineering pipe cleaners to hold plastic eggs so they don’t touch the surface.

Educators watched as students moved through stations to identify different items related to the life cycle of plants and animals, while other students were working on identifying infections and the source of infection in another class. Other students worked in teams to identify systems and used dominoes to demonstrate how energy moves.

Since 2013, when Darnaby Elementary School was selected as one of 44 schools in the United States to pilot the newest science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) program called Project Lead the Way, the school has opened its doors numerous times to allow visiting educators a chance to see the program in action. Darnaby is considered one of the models of the PLTW curriculum.

By offering this elementary STEM program to its students, Darnaby expanded its high-quality educational offerings for students. Studies show that students decide as early as second and third grade whether they like -- and think they are good at -- math and science.

PLTW’s elementary program is designed for students in kindergarten through fifth grades. Through a series of topic-based modules, students will engage in design problems that encourage collaboration, analysis, problem solving, and computational thinking.

Since the pilot project was launched, Darnaby has become one of the nation's leading PLTW schools in the nation.

Reynolds spoke to several statistics that bears out the success of their program, noting for example, that out of 104 students who enrolled in sixth grade pre-algebra last year, one in four of those students attended Darnaby Elementary School.