In Brick Teacher's Classroom, STEM Lessons Are For All

BRICK, NJ — Throughout New Jersey, school districts are talking about STEM education. There are STEM academies and STEM summer programs.

And by and large, those STEM efforts — science, technology, engineering and math — focus on the students who are the highest achievers or the most academically gifted.

There are some teachers, however, who will tell you that STEM education — and all of its positive benefits — is not and should not just be aimed at the top echelon of students.

Jeanette Wehner is one of them.

In the fifth-grade classroom where Wehner teaches, students have Skyped with an Exxon-Mobil executive to learn more about the safe transport of oil and studied primary source documents from Ellis Island to discover how people arrived in our country in the 1800s. They've learned how to calculating volume of shipping boxes, and experimented with electricity and magnetism to create a working model of a Mag-Lev train like the ones seen in Tokyo.

In Wehner's classroom at Emma Havens Young Elementary School, where she is a special education teacher and in-class support, STEM lessons involve every student, and they learn by doing.

"Her students are consistently engaged in inquiry-based projects rooted in STEM subjects," the district said in describing the work done by Wehner, the 2016-17 Ocean County Teacher of the Year. "All lessons are cross-curricular in nature and the students work together in a judgment-free classroom where they feel empowered to take educational risks."

The lessons of STEM education are as much about how students learn as what they learn. And Wehner knew that the traditional classroom approach — students sitting quietly at their desks in rows while the teacher lectures to them — wasn't helping many of her students identified as having special educational needs get the most out of their education.

So she applied for a variety of grants and received $30,000 in funds that allowed her to outfit her classroom appropriately with technology and engineering materials that allow the students to take an active role in their learning, the district said. It is one of the first elementary school STEM classrooms in the state.

"All of the students she teaches now have the opportunity to believe in themselves and take pride in their educational advancements thanks to the environment in her STEM class," the district said.

(Left to right: James Nubile, Emma Havens Young assistant principal; Susan McNamara, district testing coordinator and data analyst; Walter Hrycenko, district science supervisor; Jeanette Wehner, district Teacher of the Year; Patricia Lorusso, Emma Havens Young principal, and Interim Superintendent Thomas Gialanella. Photo: Brick Township School District)