STEMterprise has been a huge hit!
Teachers and students love Ontario Farming STEMterprise and we couldn’t be more excited! Teachers have found ways to use the project in ways we hadn’t thought of.
We’ve sent STEMterprise kits to 450 classrooms across Ontario—that’s more than 11,000 students! Teachers are using the online resources in ways that work best for them and their students, with some going all in and using all stages, some selecting just a few, some changing the order of the activities, and others hand-picking what suits their needs. And some teachers are even creating STEMterprise “lite” with a modified, focused project that can be done in just a few weeks.
Schools are using this project as an entrepreneurship project that concludes with a bake sale and a donation of the funds to a charity. Others are showcasing the granola bar businesses in a Dragon’s Den format.
Some classrooms are baking the granola bars with one recipe per business group while other classes are developing a recipe, and the teacher is modeling the baking at the front of the class (one batch as students watch).
We even have some teachers who are doing the project while adjusting the program to not work with food altogether. Leave it to creative teachers to figure this out! (We will be excited to share this with you in the fall!)
What we have learned so far is that this project is very flexible and can work in a variety of situations!
Some fast facts:
- 20 classrooms across the province are participating in a pilot – London, Peterborough, Ottawa, Kitchener/Waterloo, GTA, Orillia, and Paris. The feedback we are collecting from these schools will help influence the updates we will make over the summer, so they are ready for you in the fall!
- We are extra thankful to our French Immersion classes who have joined our pilot! We will offer these resources in French next year, and we are so thankful for their unique insights!
- Can you imagine STEMterprise in a Virtual Classroom? It’s being done quite successfully! We can’t wait to share an overview with you so that more virtual classrooms can have this experience.
Overall, here is what we are hearing from teachers:
STEMterprise is a fun and engaging way to teach students about where their food comes from and how it gets from farm to table.
Check out a few of our favourite social media posts and pictures from the year! We can’t wait to share more with you about how Ontario educators are using STEMterprise as more classrooms wrap up their projects!
