Middle School Shop Class Transformed Into High-Tech STEM Lab

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- From tinkering with robots, designing and building bridges to testing green energy, you might think you're at the Science Museum.

But the new and improved shop class in Litchfield Middle School is giving students the chance to learn high-tech skills they can someday use in real-world jobs.

"It's greatly enhanced, it's so much better than what we had going on before," Darin Pankratz said.

Thanks to a referendum passed in the spring, Litchfield 6th and 7th graders now have their very own STEM lab. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.)

At 15 different modals around the room, students work in groups of no bigger than two, so each student is always engaged.

The flight simulator is a favorite.

"You actually get to fly it and see the views from the plane," student Gra Phenteen said.

But fun is only part of it. The students are better able to grasp why they're learning what these skills.

"The equipment, the content, the connections that are made when they do that," Pankratz said, "they can say, 'Oh yeah, I see why we're doing that in science,' or, 'Why we're doing that in math.' Those applications all come together in the lab."

The students are getting a unique experience. Litchfield is one of only three districts in the state to have such a program at a middle school level.

"I think so many times initiatives are seen in big schools, big city schools, but for us in a rural school, to be able to offer something like this is exemplary. We're very fortunate," Litchfield Middle School principal Beckie Simenson said.

While Maddy Clancy worked on the Z Mill, she said she knows it wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for the community coming together in a big way.

"I'm grateful they did this, because I have learned a lot of new stuff through this and it's really cool," she said.

When the referendum was passed, voters also gave all students technology they can take home. For the first time this year, each student in grades 6 through 12 have their own MacBook Air. Elementary students received iPads.

The principal says this is significant because, before, only some students would bring their own laptops to school. This evens the playing field and all students can learn the same way regardless of their financial circumstances.