At one Akron middle school, the entire city is serving as an extension of the classroom, and this spring, that's included the animals in five exhibits at the Akron Zoo.
Dozens of National Inventors Hall of Fame STEM Middle School students stopped by the zoo a week ago to see animals using some of the enrichment projects they designed: otters diving deep for fish inside a capsule and condors shoving their heads inside special feed boxes filled with seed.
Beyond the glass of the enclosure at the otter exhibit, fifth grader Mackenna Flanigan and her fellow team members chanted at a North American river otter named Stratton, begging for him to jump onto the raft they designed.
"Stratton, the boy, had a hard time, like, getting exercise, so we made a raft that they could swim onto, and like if they fall off, they can swim onto," Flanigan explained of their enrichment project. "And from what we heard, it was right before we came out, but when they put fish on it, they actually did come on it, but we just haven't seen it yet," she said, looking on hopefully as Stratton flirted with jumping onto the platform.
Teachers and students at the STEM Middle School said the school's "problem-based learning" projects, like the one with the zoo, emphasize how students can learn valuable skills, while being of service to the community. Through these projects, students use science, technology, engineering and math principles to address issues they identify in Akron and the surrounding area.
The middle school is one of more than 50 STEM-designated schools in Ohio, which also includes the National Inventors Hall of Fame STEM High School in Akron. It's one of just four middle school only programs in the state. The school's founding partner, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, is a nonprofit that operates a museum devoted to honoring inventors and engineers, and sponsors other educational programs related to science and engineering. The STEM Middle School is housed out of the organization's former museum space in downtown Akron. Still have an ongoing relationship. Their building we're in their building - they do not provide funds -
In total, teachers said the Akron Zoo chose about 50 students' group projects to provide more activities for alpacas, armadillos, condors, otters and porcupines, part of a partnership with the STEM middle school that goes back more than a decade. Students then worked with zookeepers to create their final designs.
How it works
Near a busy gym class at the STEM Middle School, teachers and staff pointed out spaces that make the school special. Movable walls between classrooms can be opened to foster cross-disciplinary learning for students. The students also prototype ideas for projects from shelves stacked with recycled cardboard and other materials in the school's "invention incubator," and in the school's digital fabrication lab with equipment like 3-D printers.
At the incubator, fifth grader Glenn Campbell III proudly showed off a prototype of the box his team created to engage the Akron Zoo鈥檚 Andean condors.
"They would poke their head through this and it would open up and their food would be in here," Campbell explained, pointing to a compartment in front of the cardboard box. "If you want to refill this you can open this up and put it in."
Science Teacher Chelsea Nicolino worked with Campbell and other students on their projects. Nicolino said annual problem-based learning projects are integrated into classes throughout the school across all grade levels.
"Our life science standards are all on ecosystems and how animals fit into the roles of their ecosystems and how they interact with their environment." Nicolino said the students also work with social studies teacher Angica Weaver, and in her class on writing, "they do research on all the animals, so they're the experts."
Weaver said students also produced a TikTok video to try to raise awareness about the zoo as part of this year's project.
"It hits writing standards, this problem hits science, reading, social studies, math, it hits all of these standards," Weaver said.
The partnership between Akron Schools and the zoo has been in place for more than a decade. But it鈥檚 just one of many community collaborations the middle schoolers are involved with each year; each grade level does two large-scale projects annually, said Instructional Leader and Principal Amanda Morgan
Among the projects, Morgan said students have beautified spaces downtown and worked with the city to install flashing safety lights outside the school.
"The seventh grade just finished one with the Cuyahoga Valley National Park on invasive species, and they go back and remove invasive species. They planted trees, they鈥檝e kept voles and moles away from trees," she explained.
She said it鈥檚 a way to bring to life what students are learning in the classroom.
"We keep them interested in math and science and subjects that sometimes get boring to kids and we like to keep it exciting and make them keep wanting to keep learning these subjects that get harder as they go along," Morgan said.
Morgan noted the school's STEM and problem-based learning focus does take resources that aren't always easily available in a public school district. It's taken years to acquire all of the equipment they need, funded by a mix of district money, grants and support from community partners. Teachers also spend a lot of time planning, and field trips take both time to plan and money to execute.
The impact
The National Inventors Hall of Fame middle and high schools are just one example of how the district offers specialized programming to inspire students to explore careers.
As he watched the zoo's otters utilize the students' enrichment activities, Akron Zoo Education Impact Coordinator Sal Hildebrand said the students' problem-based learning project helped the zoo and the animals. But he also said he hopes the experience helps students as they consider future careers.
"The zoo exists for the community," he said. "And being able to work with the children, especially at the lower levels, is what inspires their passion for wildlife and for conservation. So the earlier we can work with them, we can light that fire and really turn them into the next generation's conservationists."
That's exactly what fifth grader Kieran Peace wants to do after his work on his school's project with the zoo this year.
"It's really cool how anything in science can just be made, with the zoo you just got to like make your own thing and design it for animals," Peace said.
Fellow student Glenn Campbell said he wants to be a mechanic, but he still got to flex those learning muscles when he designed his group's project for the condors.
And that鈥檚 why teachers at the National Inventors Hall of Fame STEM Middle School call their model a win-win. Students get to explore future careers while helping the people, and animals, in their own backyard.
