The second annual S.T.E.A.M. Expo will bring Santa Clarita students from across the Sulphur Springs Union School District together for an educational experience in several fields.

The students are planning to travel to Mitchell Community Elementary School in Canyon Country, on Wednesday to participate in the S.T.E.A.M. event, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math.  

Over 150 students will share projects in the realm of computer programming, robotics and next-generation science project-based learning.

The first grade coding classes will exhibit their Jr. Bee Bot robots as well as their work in Scratch.

Jr. Bee Bots are bee-shaped robots that students program with a series of buttons on the back of the robot. The goal is to use coding to direct the robot to a specific point on a map.

The process of coding provides these students an opportunity to practice their critical thinking, problem solving and sequencing skills.

Scratch Jr. is an iPad app that uses a simple “linking block” format to teach students how to write lines of code.

Second graders in the district will present the projects they have been working on in the new Dash & Dot Coding Club.

Dash & Dot is a connected learning system that works with a pair of real-world robots named Dash and Dot. Using the two robots and a handful of Android and iOS apps such as Blockly, students learn the fundamentals of programming, problem solving skills and much more.

One second grade classroom piloted Google CS First,  a “Passport to Computer Science”.

Google CS First teaches students computer science skills while they build functional projects.

While CS First club members build, create and play, they also learn important skills that will help open future educational and career opportunities.

A large portion of the S.T.E.A.M. Expo will be dedicated to the fifth grade coding club. These students will utilize the coding program Scratch to design either a video game or digital animation. Scratch was developed by M.I.T. with the purpose of teaching students to code.

Over 120 students participate in the district’s fifth grade coding club.

A new club to the district this year was the sixth grade Robotics club.

Combining the versatility of the LEGO building system with the most advanced technology that LEGO has ever developed, students in the club are able to unleash the creative powers of the new LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3.

The goal of the club is to create and command robots that walk, talk and “think.”

The students followed the step-by-step 3D building instructions to create and bring them to life with an easy, intuitive and icon-based programming interface. The students have an app that allows their robots to take on challenging ready-made missions and allows them to command their robot using an ipad.

Fifth and sixth grade split classes and sixth grade students across the district will be sharing their next generation science standards S.T.E.A.M. projects.

These students have been using the project-based learning format to solve an overarching problem through the use of the S.T.E.A.M. disciplines.

Projects set to be presented included digital documentaries of human cells, models of thermo-insulated houses and model cities designed to capture and divert pollution away from rivers.

Ed. Note: This article is a news release provided by the Sulphur Springs Union School District.