ANAHEIM, Calif., (March 13, 2018) – Running Springs Elementary School students, parents, teachers and faculty were joined by city and school district leaders for a ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday, commemorating the opening of two STEAM Labs on campus. The labs will provide students with expanded access to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) opportunities and resources, and build upon the education they already receive in coding, digital photography, Robotics, STEM Train, and the District STEAM Challenges.
The opening of the upper and lower grade labs comes just a little more than two years after a group of seven Running Springs parents, having identified a need for greater investment in technology in the classrooms, formed the Education Foundation of Anaheim Hills to raise awareness and funding to begin meeting that need.
"As professionals in various fields, we’ve seen how technology has become the vehicle for developing the most important skills for success in the 21st Century, known as the 4C’s, Communication, Creativity, Critical thinking and Collaboration,” said Education Foundation president and Running Springs parent Janet Kwon. “We realized that Running Springs needed more resources to develop the 4C’s in our students, so we set out to provide the technology that would supplement and complement what our outstanding teachers were already doing well.”
Running Springs principal Mark McLaughlin recognizes that opportunities in the job market will increasingly benefit students who have been exposed to STEAM-based concepts and curriculums in school. He also recognizes how critical it is that today’s teachers and students have access to the tools and resources that support successful instruction and learning.
“Running Springs Elementary School is committed to providing its students with a 21st Century Education and preparing them for college and career,” said McLaughlin. “These labs will inspire and empower our teachers to innovate and provide spaces where our students will be fully engaged, excited, and inspired to create, communicate, collaborate, and think critically.”
While the parent and community-based efforts of the Education Foundation of Anaheim Hills yielded significant results, in a relatively short period of time, Kwon knows that the opening the STEAM labs could not have happened without the support of the school.
“We are truly grateful to principal Mark McLaughlin and his staff, for their support and for working side-by-side with us to have our shared vision come to life,” said Kwon. “We are also excited to see how the teachers will use technology to further engage and inspire our students to develop those 4C’s, and how our students will use technology to solve the problems of the future.”