As computer technology has surged in the last decade, educators realize the importance of teaching computer science. Since 2016, 35 states have implemented Computer Science standards for their educators and 5 more are in the process of implementing standards.

Solving food scarcity. Preventing viral outbreaks. Designing buildings to withstand natural disasters. Through Engineering Adventures and Engineering Everywhere, learners across the country have proposed unique, data-driven solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. These flexible curricula were tested in afterschool and summer programs, but classroom educators across the country have been implementing them into their STEM instruction for years. Just ask Camie Walker, the Utah educator who was featured on our blog in 2016 for her incredible work with the Engineering Adventures unit Shake Things Up: Engineering Earthquake-Resistant Buildings. She chose units from EiE’s flexible curricula because she loves creating opportunities for learners to connect what they’re learning to the world around them and to follow their STEM interests and passions.

We sat down with Walker to learn how she uses flexible curricula to foster an inquiry-based, globally focused culture in her classroom that leads to plenty of real-world connections, and even the chance to perform with a Mythbuster!

It’s a groundbreaking year for Battle Ground Elementary School in Battle Ground, Indiana. For the first time, teachers across all grade levels will be using EiE. For many of them, EiE will be brand new, but they have experts in their midst: principal John Pearl and veteran fifth-grade science educator Diane Lehman have been championing EiE for 10 years. In the past decade, they’ve seen how EiE sets learners up for success in later grades, levels the playing field, and opens the doors for exciting real-world connections. Now, they’re ready to share everything they’ve learned with the educators in their school and across their district, so they can help even more learners discover their STEM identity.

This year, the students at Tabernacle Elementary School in Tabernacle, New Jersey are experiencing something brand new—they’re solving problems and exploring new challenges in a hands-on, collaborative STEAM environment called the Collaboratory. Since the Collaboratory has opened, students have thrived with project-based learning and the Tabernacle community has come together to support the common goal of helping kids develop 21st century skills. Collaboratory teacher Brittany Murro says, “When we started this, we thought, it’s the first year, we’ll just take things a day at a time and see where they go. But it has gone above and beyond what I think any of us expected for the first year of a new program like this.”