OAK RIDGE — Students in the STEM III class at Oak Ridge High School built durable physical sets this year for the Kindertown USA program at Willow Brook Elementary in Oak Ridge. The project replaced temporary materials previously made of boxes, duct tape, and butcher paper with sturdy structures designed for repeated use by future kindergarten classes.
Willow Brook Elementary has run the Kindertown USA program for the past three years, using role-playing activities to teach kindergartners reading, writing, and counting through simulated town jobs. Kindergarten teacher Aimee Shute approached the high school STEM class and provided a PowerPoint presentation with ideas and past examples to guide the build. "Ms. Aimee Shute, she came in and she asked that we build these things for her classroom and she gave us a PowerPoint presentation and so we got to start that way," said Halie Campbell, a junior at Oak Ridge High School.
Teachers said the sets built by the STEM students exceeded their expectations and turned out better than imagined. "We just gave them ideas of what we were kind of wanting and pictures of what we've done in the past and they just went with it and they designed it and they did a great job," Shute said.
Hayden Sauer, a recent Oak Ridge High School graduate who participated in the project during her senior year, described the experience as more engaging than typical assignments. "I think this is a lot more fun, it's a lot more (about) building community. I had a lot more fun working on this than I did actually at this," she said. Sauer added, "It's so cute to see them with the nails (and) tattoos (booth) actually paint their nails, and walk in and out and just seeing them all together for the first time was just so sweet and we were like, we did that!" The school district hopes the Kindertown USA project helps elementary students become aware of elective options available to them in high school.