The Library at Chameleon Elementary School provides academic support to both the students
and the teachers by create a space unique in the school where hands on information literacy
takes place through a wide variety of programming and events. Established in 1962, Chameleon
Elementary still works in accordance with its original mission: The Chameleon Library helps all
students address the desire for self-directed personal growth and development opportunities
throughout their lives by providing materials, programs, and services to meet the children’s
needs.
Test results show that 27% of student, did not pass state standards for reading comprehension,
math and science. The majority of these poor scores were found to be among low SES and
children from racial minority backgrounds. Reports show that STEM, science, technology,
engineering and math programs added to curriculum help to target these areas of learning. To
this end, Chameleon School Library will join forces with Kids Spark to establish a new STEM
program, where children of all backgrounds can come and have equal access to robotics and
gain valuable problem-solving skills and gain confidence and technology fluency and
imagination.
With funding support from the Cohen Foundation, Chameleon Elementary Library will be
furnished with 10 Kids Sparks Robotics Kits. These initial kits will serve as the foundation for
ongoing STEM learning.
With funding support from Cohen Foundation this project will achieve a number of positive
outcomes through a four-part curriculum:
Develop foundational capacities for all STEM learning such as spatial reasoning, problemsolving, and symbolization.
Develop their STEM identity and technology fluency through mathematics and language
comprehension
Gain greater confidence with mechanical engineering and technologies
Kid Spark curriculum teaches the practices and cross-cutting concepts used for all scientific
learning as prescribed in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
(kidsparkeducation.org)
Quantitative impact of these new kits will be measured through participation count, parent
survey, teacher evaluation as well as pre and post-test scores at the start and end of each of the
four units. Qualitative data will be collected anecdotal feedback from participating students.