A Chattanooga company that developed unique online training programs to help students see the relevance of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills in the real world has awarded a 3D printer to Signal Mountain Middle High School.
The seventh-grade STEM Innovators class taught by Joshua Payne won the prize after the school became the first in Hamilton County to complete more than 5,000 of Learning Blade’s online courses. Nationwide, the Learning Blade courses are offered in more than 2,000 schools. Even though more than 2.4 million lessons have been delivered over the past five years, only about 50 schools have reached the 5,000-course milestone to win the 3D printing prize.
“It’s a great curriculum and we’re very happy to get this printer,” Payne said after his class was presented a 3D printer earlier this month. “It really supplements all the things we do in the classroom to help expose our studetns to different ways STEM is used in industry. The kids really enjoy it because they can work at their own pace and what they are most interested in.”
Payne, a football coach who taught the seventh-grade STEM innovators class at Signal Mountain Middle High School in the past year, has used the Learning Blade curriculum for the past four years.
Learning Blade was created by the Chattanooga-based Thinking Media owned by the engineering-turned-entrepreneurial couple Sheila and Dr. Dane Boyington. After selling their first curriculum venture called KeyTrain, the Boyingtons began developing Learning Blade five years ago as on online curriculum to show students how STEM careers use the academics they are learning in school. Career videos, parent activities and 3D printing lessons are among the extra tools that Learning Blade offers which were used in Payne’s classroom over the past year.