🎃 Halloween has arrived in Qweebi! Roller Coaster and Rube Goldberg just got spooky makeovers for October. Same engineering challenges. Same STEM learning. A fun new look, with no supplies or cleanup! 👻

Six years ago, Lilly Chappell was asked to build a K–6 STEM program from scratch. She didn’t even know what STEM stood for. Today, she teaches STEM to about 700 students. Her advice to teachers starting out? “Jump right in.”

Claire Boulware was hired to teach keyboarding. No curriculum. No budget. Just: figure it out. Five years later, she’s built STEM into what she does for almost 600 K–5 students. She worked with what she had and found a way.

One of Kim Smith’s students was convinced his Rube Goldberg machine would never work. Change one thing. Test it. Try again. Eventually, it worked. He leaned back and said: “Easy math.” Sometimes students just need enough chances to figure it out.

Regina Nadbielny teaches the same students from 6th through 8th grade. Her philosophy: “Nothing I teach in sixth grade is a one-off. It’s the first step in a sequence that keeps building for three years.” That’s what a STEM curriculum should do: build forward.

Work matters more when it has an audience. Lori Prohaska has 3rd graders judge her 4th graders’ Roller Coaster projects each year. This year, one winner was a student who doesn’t always get to shine. When his name was announced, the whole class stood up and clapped.

Some of Allison Hill's strongest students were still stuck. A group of students reading below grade level had already finished. Every student has strengths. Sometimes they just need a different way to show them.

One STEM teacher. 720 students. 30-minute classes. Nowhere to store a physical build. Ann Hajost told the story of her roller coaster unit in four photos from her own classroom — including the student who struggles with reading finishing first.