School & Family Magazine Newstand Cedar Hill ISD February 2018 | Page 14

NEW MIDDLE
SCHOOL
ACADEMIES
UPDATE
BECOME A LONGHORN
New STEAM academies engage students
Student projects
target social issues and
sustainability.
T
eachers wrapped STEAM in empathy to teach lifelong lessons at the new middle school
academies. Operating as schools within a school, each campus selected projects
based on their unique focus.
Bessie Coleman Middle School Environmental
Science & Engineering Academy
Six raised flower gardens will spring forth with new life after academy students created a plan
to clean up cinder block-lined beds on campus and grow fruits and vegetables.
Mary Robinson, the school’s math academic specialist, calls the project an obvious choice. “We
had the unused beds, and our emphasis is environmental science and engineering.”
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