This standard is one that builds strength for the STEM program.  By providing the STEM Team with quality professional development it prepares them for content integration and the engineering design process – a key component.  The rationale is to improve STEM education across the board, have students draw content correlations, and build a cohesive understanding of integrating science, technology, engineering, and math to also include ELA and social studies.  Due to teacher attrition, training and professional development has helped our STEM Team to understand STEM and how it relates to real-world events, and complexities of a global society.  Therefore, collaboration and planning are pertinent for interdisciplinary connections.  The STEM program embraces the 4C’s of 21st Century skills – collaboration (students’ must work together in teams), communication (working in teams forces students to speak and solve together), be creative (students must think/design scaled illustrations or prototypes of their designs), and critical thinker (students must think outside of the box). The STEM Team connects this practice to already established curriculums with the Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE).  The challenge is managing pacing schedules, and unit plans for the four content areas – ELA, math, science, and social studies, for every capstone or project, may not coincide with GSE every time.  However, STEM teachers connect with at least two out of four.  

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