POINTS of PRIDE: Nevada Community School District

MakerSpace with student Trey and tech coach Carrie Hillman

Welcome to Nevada Community School District, nestled in central Iowa surrounded by wind turbines and Iowa landscape.  But it's the landscape within that creates the charm of Nevada High School.


DEMOGRAPHICS
Enrollment:  1548
Free and Reduced Lunch:  36%
1:1 MacBooks at the high school
Grades 5-8 Chromebooks

WELCOME TO MAKERSPACE:  The MakerSpace is located in the LMC and contains opportunities for creation including:  KANO - make your own computer; LITTLE BITS - working with circuits; ARDUINO KITs - building robots; 3-D printer; replicator, and monitors. 

WOW!  Students can work in this area before school, after school, during study hall, and when their class work is complete.  The key is to get creative opportunities into the hands of students.  When I visited, Trey was making clips he created on the 3D printer to put on the spools of plastic string so they won't unravel.  Creative problem-solving, real 21st Century skills to prepare students for college and career!

Nevada has two green screen rooms for recording presentations and also providing Cub TV for the schools with up-to-date news reports from the hallways of Nevada.  Studio lights and comfortable furniture add to the quality of the telecasts.

 What else is happening in Nevada?  Parents and students have classroom choices - the traditional model one grade at a time or multi-aged classrooms where students have the same teacher for two years.  Project-based learning is a focus and rotating themes for science and social studies take place.  All grades teach the same theme with a four year rotation of themes.  In social studies students watch CNN student news and blog about what they are learning.  In classes students learn about coding through hands-on experiences and free online resources.

In the library the following quote can be found:  "We lose ourselves in books and we find ourselves there too."  The same can be said in the technology opportunities available at Nevada - a student can easily be lost in the complexity of the creation but through the process they find themselves as well and begin preparing for the digital age which awaits them beyond the classroom walls.