Excitement was abuzz in this particular STEM Club meeting as Love third and fourth graders became acquainted with a few of their newest friends — Ozobot and Dash.

The opportunity to work with these coding robots and other materials that support Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) learning was made possible from a donation by the Cummins Jamestown Engine Plant.

“We’re so grateful to Cummins for their donation and letting us get this far,” said Peterson, a first grade teacher who advises the STEM Club at Love. “It’s really great to have those supplies that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get on our own.”

Peterson has been eager to expose students to STEM at Love and attended last year’s Elementary STEM Wars at Northwest Arena to learn how to prepare her students for the event later this school year.

Love fourth graders Aleah Fellows and Gracie Parsons work with coding robots made possible through a donation to the school’s STEM Club by the Cummins Jamestown Engine Plant.

“Some of the things that we saw were marble races, catapults, programming robots, and other projects,” Peterson said. “There also was a makerspace for skills like sewing and building, so I took all that back and started the STEM Club at Love School so that we could be ready by May 2024.”

Cummins’ donation has been life-changing for the students at Love School.

“Before that, we might’ve gotten four robots and that was it, and now we have three different types of robots,” Peterson said. “They also donated paper, construction materials, and materials to build houses out of cardboard. It’s a lot of stuff that we can have students do. We’re so excited about it.”

The robots that students were able to experiment with during their first exposure to them at the end of February allows them to learn coding in different ways.

“The Ozobots take away technology like iPads and computers and allows students to just do the very basics of coding. They follow a black line with different colors and try to put them together and it builds a code and the robots will either turn in circles or turn around or turn left or right,” Peterson said. “The Dash robots are very iPad based. Kids are working with block coding, so they have to put blocks together and show them how to move. It’s more technology-based.”

Most of all, Peterson loves being able to let the students take ownership of STEM.

“My favorite part of this is really trying to back off as a teacher and let the kids take their learning into their own hands,” she said. “I give the students the goal, but I ask them to figure out how they can get there. It’s really cool to start seeing them take ownership of their own work. When we first started, they had a lot of questions, but now they don’t really ask as much. They just play around and try to figure it out themselves.”

STEM also has taught the students the power of teamwork.

“I really want the community to know that their kids are working on those skills like social interaction, but also working on problem solving,” Peterson said. “That’s a big thing our students need to work on and work in teams, not just by themselves.”