Mystic Aquarium providing STEM experience to Pell Elementary School

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NEWPORT — A special education teacher at Pell Elementary School is working with the Mystic Aquarium to bring STEM (science, technology, engineering and math, education) subjects to her classroom.

The STEM Accelerator Program was created during the COVID pandemic in response to the learning loss that happened during that time. The aquarium has always had learning programs for students, but prior to the pandemic it was a mentorship program.

“We’ve been doing that model for years now and we normally do this through grant money. But in response to dollars that was flowing to address learning loss, we came up with the STEM Accelerator based off of that model,” said Ayana Melvan, senior director of strategic partnerships at Mystic Aquarium.

Pell Elementary School special educator Carla Jewell works with her student, Aiden Duncan, 9, on Oct. 12, to identify scientific photos, as part of Mystic Aquarium's STEM Accelerator Program.

Anyone can teach the program, Melvan said, not necessarily a formal teacher. The program is geared around the after-school model that’s focused on social-emotional and hands-on learning because, during the pandemic, students were not able to be around their peers and positive adults outside of their families due to social distancing.

“There’s two parts to our curriculum,” Melvan said. “One part is largely about social-emotional learning, so there’s a team-building aspect, building up team skills so you know how to problem solve with multiple people. There’s also an independent component where you learn to work … all on your own.”

Part of the aquarium’s mission is research, education and conservation to protect oceans. Melvan said distributing educational materials such as these into the public’s hands can help create stewards of the land and water.

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“Our hope is that we can entice as many young people as possible into being interested in the field of STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — so that they can, in turn, become stewards of the water, stewards of the land, and help us continue our mission around that,” she said.

STEM and special education

The real-life and hands-on STEM instruction given to students is something that excites special educator Carla Jewell, who before finding out about the accelerator course has always worked to bring STEM instruction to her students because she believes in making education accessible to all.

“My students are part of the alternate assessment program, where they’re considered significantly impaired, in that I have students who have autism, students who have intellectual impairments,” she said. “Some of them are non-verbal, some of them are bi-lingual and learning English, so it’s a big variety of skills.”

For the past 18 years, Jewell has taught for Newport Public Schools, including 17 years in special education.

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“The students in the alternate assessment program have the biggest learning challenges out of everybody in the school, and I really like working really hard, targeting that whole student, so looking at language needs, functional life-skills, academics and finding the academics that will make their lives better and encourage them to keep trying their hardest,” Jewell said. “Showing up to school every day and showing everybody that kids with all abilities have the ability to succeed.”

Last year, Jewell said her director sent her information about the Mystic STEM program. After reading more about it, Jewell knew she wanted to establish it in her classroom and her director was able to find funding for it.

“When you think of the aquarium, obviously you think of aquatics and animals, but the program goes beyond just fish and beluga whales and all those exciting things,” Jewell said. “It’s a hands-on STEM program. It covers some social, emotional and team building, and then it has hands-on activities.”

The activities go through the STEM subjects. One is science-based, one is technology-based, one is engineering-based and the other is mathematics-based. The sessions are designed to be 30 minutes long.

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Included in the program are training videos for the teacher and a big bucket of materials needed to instruct.

“Our first session is one of our team-building social and emotional sessions. It’s called, ‘Picture Yourself in STEM,’ and it’s going to have questions about what kind of jobs do you think you could do if you were a scientist working in STEM,” Jewell said. “And then it has these big cards with all sorts of tools scientists might use. So anything you can think of, and it’s for the students to think about what tools might be helpful for scientists.”

For students in her classroom, Jewell said the visualization of this lesson is fantastic because the students who are non-verbal will be able to point and match certain pictures.

For the students learning English, it provides the opportunity for them to look at more sophisticated science tools and English words, she said.

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“Once we do that, the following week we’re going to do another science activity — ‘Float Your Boat.’ Mystic Aquarium provided big buckets and clay, so the students are going to be able to make different kinds of clay boats to see what style best will float in the water.”

Some of the other projects students will be completing during this program are building towers out of cups to see how they can construct the tallest tower, and making a pipeline out of PVC pipes and a marble.

“There really has to be teamwork and team building and really getting the students to interact with each other,” Jewell said. “Sometimes kids with autism are really happy just interacting with the adult who works close with them, but this will really encourage the students to build a team together.

“We like to say in my classroom that our room is the school family, so we are really encouraging each other and working together. And especially in these COVID times, when we have to do our best to social distance and students don’t get to see each other’s faces fully with their masks on, the more opportunities I can provide to them for working together and thinking about real-life experiences is going to be really important to them.”

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