STEM Innovation Lab
Explore | Experiment | Engage
The Campaign for The Summit's STEM Innovation Lab
One of our strategic visions for The Summit Preparatory School is the addition of a STEM Innovation Lab, part maker space, part science lab, for students of all ages to explore, experiment, and engage in deeper discovery through our science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curriculum. Our STEM education creates a student centered learning environment that allows individuals to work on real world scenarios and develop critical thinking, problem solving, creative, and collaborative skills. The STEM Innovation Lab will provide the critical space and infrastructure needed for more advanced STEM project based learning opportunities for all students at The Summit.
It is with great excitement and deep gratitude that we announce we have had a donor approach us offering a $50,000 match to help launch our STEM Innovation Lab, with a goal to begin the first phase of construction in early summer of 2022. This phase would transform the current locker room space into a functional, multipurpose instructional space that we desperately need as our enrollment continues to grow, particularly in our upper school.
In March of 2020, we were well-poised to move forward from taking our vision to reality. Then, as we all know, everything suddenly changed. As we all reconciled the fallout of the pandemic, plans to move our project into construction were left unrealized. We readjusted and reprioritized to make sure our faculty and students continued learning safely together.
Since our initial appeal at the 2018 Gala and throughout the pandemic, we have continued to make gains in our hands-on, minds-on approach to STEM curriculum and programming, including:
- Hiring a lower school STEM Coordinator for dedicated weekly STEM instruction
- Expanding our upper school math course offerings and faculty with the addition of a second full-time math teacher
- Building our award-winning FIRST LEGO League robotics club
- Furthering our STEM academic offerings, including computer science, data science, and culinary arts courses
- Increasing student opportunities to engage in STEM competitions:
- 2021: Student nominated for the 2021 Broadcom MASTERS National Middle School Science Competition
- 2021 Science Olympiad: Middle school team ranked 15th in the state of Missouri
- 2020: Two middle school students qualify for State Math League Competition and three additional middle school students qualify for District Math League Competition
- 2020: Middle school students competed in Math Counts competition
- 2019 Destination Imagination: Lower School Global Finalists
- Implementing our student-designed pollinator garden and native landscaping initiative through grant funding secured from the Missouri Department of Conservation
- Investigating model programs and identifying construction and equipment needs to make our Innovation Lab a reality on campus
Your support today will bring us one step closer to our $50,000 goal, which will be matched to a grand total of $100,000, so we can move forward with our construction plans with HoodRich Architecture and BASE Construction for an early summer project start time to minimize classroom disruption during the school year.
This campaign is bigger than all of us. That is why we encourage each of you not only to consider making a pledge to support our Innovation Lab but also to share our campaign and our goal with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, and anyone you know who cares about supporting STEM education in the Ozarks. Our students today will be our leaders and innovators tomorrow in science, medicine, technology, aviation, and more.
Join The Summit in helping our Innovation Lab take flight! Together, we can rise to the challenge and meet our match!
