Grant to assist with STEAM program

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

As the students around the New York Mills School District rejoice during the first month of summer and enjoy their various activities, members of the NY Mills Education Foundation are already preparing new opportunities for the coming school year.

NY Mills Education Foundation board member, Stephanie Von Ruden reported that they recently received a grant from Otter Tail Power to help cover costs of some STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Arts-Mathematics) supplies for classrooms throughout the district.

“It was something we had applied for,” said Von Ruden. “We had a couple of people from the school who had gone to a grant writing conference, so we’ve been utilizing their skills to help supplement things at the school.”

With this grant, the Foundation will be able to provide the school with 30 snap circuits and 30 coding sets to use between the high school and elementary classrooms. These will be used for STEAM carts that will be able to roll around the school to be used by the various classes of students.

“I know right now that the fifth and sixth grade and the high school utilize them,” said Von Ruden. “We just didn’t have enough inside of the school, so now they will really be available for everybody. The Code and Go mice are actually for pre-K, so ages four to eight, so that will cover the other part of the school who don’t have something of that nature. So that will be awesome.”

With the timing of the grant award, the Education Foundation is confident that they will have the STEAM carts completed and ready to go by the start of the 2025-26 school year.

“It’s part of a bigger project that we’re working on,” said Von Ruden. “The Carnival funds from last year are being utilizing to create these STEAM carts and we have been working together with a group of teachers from all age groups and different sections to come up with what things would actually be utilized within the school,

“We’ve done surveys across the school,” she continued. “The overall general feedback is that they’re excited, but it is hard to implement things into their already-established curriculum, but I know that our teachers will do a great job of implementing that sort of stuff within the school. It’s kind of a new way of things, everything is very STEAM-driven in the world, so it’s great to have this to supplement this project.”

Von Ruden said that her own son is a very STEAM-driven individual and she would love to eventually see the progression of these learning opportunities with real-life implementation, especially relating to the fact that NY Mills continues to be heavily involved in manufacturing.

“We’re hoping that these carts have everything from engineering to art supplies,” she said. “Things you wouldn’t really think of but letting the kids use their own creative energy to also generate something awesome.”