Case for Community Day at Michael R. White STEM School

This past Friday, Case for Community Day had made a great impact on Michael R. White STEM School. This school has been chosen as a Capstone site for myself along with three other senior nursing students. Now one may ask "What is a STEM school?", and I had the same question myself. To be a STEM school means that there is special emphasis placed on curriculum in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics...hence the S.T.E.M acronym! What is so unique about this type of course work is that our own school has joined a special partnership with Michael R. White to help bring forth these educational needs to the children. Michael R. White is one of the few schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District area that has been selected to participate.

What brought forth the idea to help create a Capstone site at Michael R. White STEM School, is that this school has a community garden and greenhouse located behind the school. Members of the surrounding area have dedicated many hours of hard labor to help create and sustain this large (and impressive) garden: there is a plethora of peppers, corn, cabbage and even eggplant! One of our group members even took an eggplant home to make Eggplant Parmesan- yum! One of the first visits our group had at Michael R. White, was assessing this greenhouse and planning on how we can create a learning space and incorporating STEM educational requirements for the children. This is when Case for Community day had come to the rescue.

Now, the greenhouse was dirty to say the least and there was a very slim chance that all 4 Capstone members could get this greenhouse cleaned up and presentable by our goal date of this upcoming Tuesday- for the school's open house. Thankfully, a group of 19 volunteers were present to do major work on this greenhouse site: members from various communities, faculty members, and students all rolled up their sleeves and dove right in to the tasks that lied ahead. The volunteers were enthusiastic to see the community garden and were astonished to see the various plants that were growing. Within the time span of three hours, the windows were clean, the bathrooms had been painted, and all of the trash/useless items had been thrown away! We were also able to lift this heavy chlorophyll model and put it on table: it was eye catching and I knew that this was a great starter piece to create a STEM learning environment.

The principal of the school, had stopped by to check on the progress and her facial expression was priceless: she was grinning ear-to-ear and kept repeating "WOW, look at this place! It looks so clean!". The children of the school had come to check out all the commotion and were so giddy to see that this space was now fully functioning. They were curious about the chlorophyll model and had no clue that it was even in the greenhouse. When we plugged in the model to the wall, it rotated around and light up. The children LOVED it! They stated that they were looking forward to having classes in the greenhouse and couldn't wait for more people from Case to come back to visit. It was a gratifying feeling, to know that the children were so enthusiastic about learning and utilizing this space.

Overall, I believe that Case for Community Day served as a major steeping stone to help Michael R. White. By utilizing the greenhouse , and bonding with the members of the faculty and children we were able to see their true passion for learning. I was honored to be apart of this experience and I can't wait for more events that are going to unfold. It is going to be a great school year.