February 15

On Thursday evening, our campus will be a happening place! Not only will we be welcoming visiting families as they tour our school, but we will be having a “STEMazing” opportunity to see Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math at work. Our STEM Festival will feature our students and the research they have done in proving, or disproving, scientific hypotheses. We will have student reports on famous inventors and young researchers from our Lower School demonstrating our amazing sense of smell and the integration with taste buds. Science and language arts will be intertwined as middle school students share original science-fiction stories. In addition, we have invited the Tucson community to join us. We’ll have experts in optics, laser games, physics challenges, and brain games for all ages. Scientists will be roaming around, eager to share what they do and how their careers evolved. This is all part of our expanding STEM initiative from K-8, which is broadening our understanding of the connections throughout various areas of study, including how Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, as well as Art, Music, and Religion are linked together and complement one another.

Our growing STEM program at St. Michael’s is a result of our capital campaign and our commitment to bringing a greater presence of STEM education into our curriculum and school program. Funds raised through our capital campaign, Charting Our Course for the Future, are helping to support these efforts. Our STEM Festival is just one example of this initiative. Other examples include our growing robotics elective and presence at area competitions; our increasing presence at local and regional math competitions; and our expanding relationships with the University of Arizona STEM programs as well as with the scientific community at Raytheon. Across the board, our faculty is taking part in local and state professional development opportunities that provide tools for integrating STEM elements into classroom activities and into a variety of subjects from Kindergarten through middle school.

It’s an exciting time on the St. Michael’s campus and, as we look to next year, our students can expect to see even more opportunities to explore their world and expand their understanding of the relevance and connections between what is being studied and learned. I am grateful to the members of our faculty as they embrace this initiative and engage our young learners. It’s a team effort as we prepare our students to think critically and dream big! At St. Michael’s, there’s a balance between answering questions and questioning answers; a balance between discovering yourself and discovering your world.

Margaret Moore

Head of School