Home Depot brings STEM in the form of a birdhouse
On December 15, 2017 PCMS STEM Strategic Partner Home Depot visited with Ms. Crowder’s eighth grade science classes and Ms. Newton’s seventh grade art classes to build birdhouses. Students were given a range of materials and instructions for the build. “This activity was a way to support the standards we are covering about the transfers and forces of energy.”, commented Ms. Crowder.
The Home Depot 115 on Tilly Mill has been supporting PCMS for many years but became an official STEM partner last year. Enthusiastic Home Depot team members Ms. Josefina Hernandez and Ms. Jayne Walker arrived from the store with 160 birdhouse kits and enough tools for students to build in teams of twos. Ms. Hernandez is a PCMS alumni and explained, “I loved coming to PCMS for middle school and I was super excited to help advance the STEM exposure to my alma mater!”
As for all the student created birdhouses there is a plan. Ms. Newton started the idea of wanting to build a bird sanctuary around the school by creating a large mural on the school building of a peach tree and then use the birdhouses as the “peaches” hanging on the tree. “It would be a wonderful way to beautify the school and create a wildlife preservation area.”
Students enjoyed the activity and left many of them positively impacted. “The kids really enjoyed the hands-on engineering challenge.”, noted Ms. Crowder, “Good to see a finished product that they built.”
About half of the birdhouses built will be used for the mural and the other half will be painted by students and auctioned off in Ms. Newton’s 2018 PCMS Art Show for charity
