Hi Everyone, I hope this letter finds you happy and well. I know these times are completely strange and we are all adapting. I have about a million thoughts on this crisis but I want to quickly share with you the immediate path forward for this website and company. I love creating these learning opportunities for our students and I love working with all of them at our camps and workshops. Obviously working directly is not an option right now so I'm adapting and innovating as quickly as I can. I'm a very positive person and love a good challenge so as scary as this all is for me and many people, I also am excited about the opportunities it allows us....to be innovators, to be creative, to help others, to come together as a community. In many ways, this virus will break some norms and create massive change in business, education, and general society as we know it today. I hope it creates change in a good way whether that's through professional adaptations, personal growth, financial responsibility, and especially through family togetherness. I need to continue growing in all of those areas.
Digital, virtual, electronic learning has been thrust into the new norm whether we like it or not. I believe that even after schools start up again there is going to be a major focus on virtual learning in all schools that have the capacity to pull it off. Most districts have been trending in that way over the past few years anyway but this crisis certainly advanced those plans.
I've been running this company for over three years and I really want to do my part and be a leader in the STEM Education world and be someone you can count on to help provide quality, realistic, and meaningful ideas and curriculum for our students.
This STEM curriculum guide is meant to coincide (not replace) but live together with the curriculum set forth by all of the school districts and your teachers. These teachers are doing an awesome job scrambling to help get our kids and parents the resources they need to be successful over the next couple of months. I want to add a STEM component to that so you have more than enough quality ideas. It will be a collection of ideas, links, videos, software recommendations, science experiments, etc....I will not be recreating the wheel on many ideas but I will be creating original content, videos, as time permits. I will break ideas down by the day, week, and month for the month of April. I hope to have it broken down by grade level but it's like I tell all of my students....I can give a 2nd grader and a 6th grader the same assignment but the expectation for the project completion and effort put forward is tremendously higher for the older student. I truly believe that in STEM, you only get out what effort you're willing to put in. It will be a living document that I will keep updating as often as I can develop, add, and create new content. I will definitely have WEEK 1 ready for you and that will buy me time to get the final three weeks of April in order. Then I can start working on the May guide. I have a ton of fun ideas that I'm working on and I just hope I'm able to pull off even half of them for you. We will have an Instagram Page and Facebook Page set up for students to post all of their work and ideas to show off what they've done and also to help inspire other students. I understand these next two months are going to be very challenging in so many ways but let's try our best to continue to focus and help push our kids and each other to be better, stronger, and kinder. I think we have an opportunity here to create a really fun and engaged community of STEM students and parents. FYI. This guide will be free for anyone that wants it because I know dollars are hard to come by right now but education never stops. I will, however, be placing a donate button on the page if you feel this STEM guide is of value and you are able to donate minimally at this time. There is absolutely no expectation for donation and I would be saddened if that kept someone from using the guide. Please get the guide no matter what and SHARE SHARE SHARE this with family and friends. Thank you as always for your support. I look forward to doing my little part to enhance our student's understanding of the amazing and wonderful STEM world that's all around them. Have an awesome day.
Dustin