STEM

In STEM Lab, students learn by participating in Live Action Role Play (LARP).  Live Action Role Play is a learning experience in which students learn by portraying a character in a pretend world. In this class, our pretend world is the Star Wars Universe and each student is a character who lives and works in the Star Wars Universe. Students are divided into groups and assigned a Star Wars planet. They become immersed in the LARP as they learn about the government, environment, economies, infrastructure, and societies of the Star Wars planet in which they are assigned. By understanding these components, they have accomplished the first step in the Engineering Design Process, empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand what others fell and see things from their point of view. With empathy, students are ready to portray the characters on their plants, because they understand the needs and wants of their planet's people. Every lesson requires the students to become a STEM professional on their planet who has been given a mission, a problem to solve, or a job to do by their planet's leaders. To do this, they must perform an aspect of a real STEM profession and evaluate how politics, the environoment, economics, and culture impact their work.