GREENE—The Greene Central School district is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new hands-on learning experience for our intermediate students in grades 4-5. The district recently received a competitive two-year grant to implement FUSE, a cutting-edge STEAM program for our intermediate students in grades three through five.
With a price tag of $26,000 the grant-based program includes all training, classroom and project materials and equipment and allows for all intermediate students to participate in FUSE as part of their special area schedule. In FUSE, students explore different STEAM (STEM plus Arts) topics through leveled activities, or challenges.
Known more affectionately to GCS intermediate students simply as “FUSE”, the program has been specifically designed to allow students to explore their personal areas of interest, which provide a broad range of opportunities for deeper engagement.
“Building collaborative relationships allows more opportunities for students to learn from each other and become fully engaged because they feel comfortable to speak more freely about their strategies with others, “ said Patricia Stochel, STEAM and FUSE teacher at Greene Intermediate School who leads the program.
Autonomy and critical thinking serve as pillars of the program, and all aspects of FUSE are designed with student’s interests in mind using a project based learning approach.
“The FUSE program influences students to become more confident in choosing what, when and how they learn. It also reinforces that students should not see right or wrong in each approach but establish a strong foundation at any level of their learning,” said Stochel.
FUSE Challenges include robotics, 3D design and printing, music, apparel, coding and more. Students choose which specific challenge to work on daily, and challenges are compatible with remote and hybrid learning.
“One of our core values as a district is ‘We should lead STEAM educational initiatives,’ I believe the FUSE program will give our students the opportunity to participate in inquiry-based learning activities that focus on building 21st century skills”, said Bryan Ayres who serves as Principal at Greene Intermediate School. “We are thrilled that we now have the ability to provide our students with additional STEAM opportunities.”
The program is made possible thanks to support from Siemens Smart Infrastructure. Since 2017, Siemens has launched FUSE in over 20 schools across the country as part of their ongoing support for schools and districts interested in curriculum that supports STEAM exploration and the workforce of the future.
“The FUSE team has always put the student experience at the center of our work. We are thrilled by Siemens’ continued support to provide more students the opportunity to engage in FUSE. We look forward to developing sustaining partnerships with each of our grant recipients, and we are excited that students will receive access to a diverse suite of challenges designed to ignite creativity, collaboration and discovery through activities not found in a typical classroom setting,” said Reed Stevens, Northwestern University Professor, and Founder of FUSE.