Community Experiences Enhance Education

For the past 40 years, community-based education has slowly gained in popularity. It is a way to incorporate classroom education with real-life, every day issues. It can be done in many different ways, but the overall goal is to bring the community into the local education process.

The Progressive STEAM Initiative (PSI) strives to balance the challenges with alternate classroom scheduling with best practice social distancing by providing outdoor lessoning and activities. Previous blogs identify the positives for the student, but this blog will share with you the positives with community participation.

PSI lessons and activities are local business focused. For example, one lesson is sponsored by a bowling center; and in this class we conduct it AT the bowling center and discuss force and motion. Another class is sponsored by a dance studio. In this class, the orchestral interlude "Flight of the Bumblebee" is used to example the way bees fly. It is a sound-based lesson that gives students a way to visualize the flight of bees.

These are just two examples of how education can team up with the community to heighten the student's educational experience. After all, PSI believes that experiences last longer.