Snow Hill Primary has been recognized as a STEM School of Distinction under the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's (NCDPI) STEM Recognition Program. In order to reach this recognition, Snow Hill Primary has to meet certain criteria set by DPI. These requirements included offering a full range of rigorous learning experiences utilizing 21st Century skills, problem-solving, Jr. Challenges, and creating a STEM-focused curriculum. 

Jose Garcia, GCS STEM Director stated “Teachers provide students with many opportunities that meet or challenge their individual abilities. Snow Hill Primary developed a comprehensive K-1 STEM Education program because of the need for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to support the ongoing STEM focus in the upper-grade levels and provide students awareness to regional careers that require a new way of thinking.”

Garcia went on to add that the curriculum is continually changing as students and teachers and students enhance their skills and expectations. The key element of the curriculum that incorporates all four pillars of STEM is that of the JR. Challenges. The Jr. Challenges provide students with an authentic assessment through the constructivist and social learning theory approach that allows students to use their knowledge and skills to work collaboratively in completing a teacher-developed project-based learning project. Instead of lessons, which are usually passive, tasks are developed by teachers that incorporate the four pillars of STEM in a variety of ways so that some tasks focus on math and science, technology and engineering, or all four elements by enhancing lessons currently in place or developing tasks that meet the needs of the expectations for integrating STEM. 

As part of the STEM program, Teachers complete a specific number of STEM-focused tasks each quarter that support the Jr. Challenges or use them as stand-alone tasks to teach course standards. For example, teachers typically complete STEM-focused tasks in the first quarter along with the Jr. Challenges as an ongoing project. As teachers build their skills and knowledge in delivering the tasks, the expectation of the number of tasks will increase each quarter in subsequent years. The goal is to create a repository using the district’s learning management system (Canvas) to organize the STEM integrated tasks that teachers can select based on student abilities and interests. To build teacher capacity and a growth plan for teachers that embark in the STEM teaching process, each summer, teachers convene to revise the tasks used during the previous year, develop new tasks, and create new Jr. Challenges. The STEM Director provides feedback on each of the tasks developed or revised to make sure skills, state standards, and STEM pillars are merged to produce a quality STEM-focused task.

The Jr. Challenges are STEM-infused projects with a focus on project-based learning with a global perspective using the Engineering Design Process as a guide while integrating the STEM elements, content area standards selected by the teacher, and identified 21st Century Skills from P21 Partnership for 21st Century Learning website. Teachers collaborate with students or allow students to work among their own teams on the project. Students present their products to their peers in the school with the future goal to complete presentations at other schools in the district.

The STEM program in Greene County is led by Mr. Jose Garcia and is implemented at every school except the Early College. Snow Hill Primary joins Greene County Middle School and Greene Central High School as state-recognized programs. The program has produced assessment outcomes that support the research in using this instructional approach. What is overlooked is how the teacher develops and the pace of their growth. The teacher is one of the critical elements in making any higher-order teaching method work. A five-year process that adds an additional component each year in training teachers to utilize this approach along with specific data that is collected to coach and train teachers helps build teacher capacity focused on STEM Education. Teachers are becoming digital leaders compared to just avoiding technology, leading professional learning sessions in the district, or peer-coaches. The quality of the teachers in the STEM Education program improves the quality of the teaching in the district and supports the vertical alignment of the program as students progress through the K-12 pipeline that has been established.