Tonawanda Elementary School will be a state-of-the-art new facility when it opens to students in Fall 2023. It will include two STEM Labs that will foster creativity and opportunity among students through a variety of projects. Technology classes helped bring a little of the outdoors to those classroom labs.
“All these shapes are student-designed,” explained High School Technology teacher Shawn Lodovico.
He’s talking about the 4-feet wide by 4-feet wide by 8-feet high trees made out of plywood that will be the centerpieces of the labs. It was one of students' last projects of the 2022-2023 school year.
Teacher Shawn Lodovico (right) and his Technology student show the small model that was turned into a life-sized tree.
“Gary Novitz’s students designed these shapes on AutoCad and then he made 3D prints of them to see what they’d look like,” Lodovico said. “Ty’s job is to assemble them with the kids and then my job is to document it. We’re going to make a time-lapse video of cutting it out, piecing it together and everything like that.”
Eighth grade Technology teacher Ty Hardleben said one tree will be mounted in the middle of the upstairs STEM Lab, while the downstairs lab will have two trees. Desks are expected to surround the trees in a quad. The trees also have shelves on each side for books and other supplies, but the shelves also act to stabilize the design.
“Sometimes I’m the first chance any of these students get to use a screwdriver, let alone talk safety with machines or use a drill press or a saw of any type,” Hardleben said. “I may be the last time they use it, or I’m just the beginning. And in Western New York, we are a huge tech corridor, so we’re putting young adults in fields using their hands and using their heads. And many times the girls are getting hired even more quickly than the boys, as companies realize their workforce isn't as representative as they would like.”
He talked about one female friend who started at a local plant as a line worker and a year later was leading a line and is still rapidly moving through the company.
"I want this kind of success for my students and these types of STEM skills can help them achieve it," he said.
See the amazing time-lapse video of the project here.
A Technology student cuts out a tree from plywood, as teacher Ty Hardleben (center, wearing hat) guides the process.
Read more about Tonawanda Elementary, described by Buffalo News Reporter Barbara O'Brien as "a $53.46 million construction project that has completely remade the existing Fletcher Street School and added 100,000 square feet of classrooms, gym, fitness center and library." https://buffalonews.com/news/l....