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To develop a vision of future academic and career possibilities and enable students to translate those visions into the realities of college graduation, informed citizenship, and international leadership.
Through a technology enriched curriculum designed to activate analytical, critical, and inventive thinking, Killeen ISD STEM Academy will prepare students to thrive in a highly complex 21st century society by providing project based learning opportunities that engage, excite, and empower students to be self-motivated, adept, lifelong learners.
- Provide students increased opportunities to earn post-secondary course credit prior to high school graduation.
- Increase student awareness and capacity for future success in college STEM courses and the STEM workplace.
- Expand course offerings in the STEM program to all KISD high schools.
- Provide students opportunities for challenging coursework.
- Support the philosophy of HB5 by providing choice and flexibility.
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STEM Studies Community Health
Seventh-graders at the STEM Academy at Smith Middle School are working all semester on a project that begins with community health and reaches around the world. Titled “Here’s to Your Health” or H2YH, the Project Based Learning activity started Feb. 2 with seventh-graders at Carl Levin Park in Harker Heights surveying residents, examining pond water and learning about composting.
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STEM Tiny House Design
The sixth-grade architects in the Smith Middle School STEM Academy showed off their tiny house model structures during presentations Thursday. Sixth-graders worked in teams to meet with clients, mostly teachers and other school staff members and built tiny houses based on their customers’ specifications. Keeping with the “tiny house” concept, the students used environmentally friendly material and made their designs energy efficient.
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Cancer Research Outreach
Seventh-graders sought out complex facts about specific kinds of cancer, interviewed experts and presented their findings in a public health fair. The STEM Academy science students worked through the first nine-week grading period researching a particular kind of cancer, mostly varieties that affected someone they knew. The project, with its required presentation segment and action plan made up the first project for the new academy, which is located at Killeen ISD’s new Roy J. Smith Middle School.
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Eclipse Viewing
Wedged neatly between planning for the coming start of school and greeting families picking up class schedules, faculty members at Roy J. Smith Middle School in Killeen took some time Monday for an eclipse. About 23 people – middle school STEM Academy faculty with a few guests - stepped into the home side stands at the new school’s stadium, where they followed the progression of the solar eclipse.
