South Fayette’s STEAM Innovation Summer Institute is currently in its fifth year of operation and has drawn national attention for its early and innovative curricular focus on bringing computing to children of all ages with a focus on creativity and the design of projects that have currency outside of school in the “real world” such as interactive digital stories, video games, practical apps, and manipulatives such as robots. The professional development program was initially designed exclusively for South Fayette instructors, but grew annually through ongoing support from the Grable Foundation, to begin to include districts from across the state of Pennsylvania and now nationally. Since its inception, the Grable Foundation challenged South Fayette to make innovation happen in the region.

The expectation for attending the Institute is that participants must implement what they have learned in their classrooms during the upcoming school year. Participants report back to the Institute team twice during the year to help gauge the impact the Institute has had on teaching and learning. In terms of the content the STEAM Innovation Summer Institute has three tracks Computer Science/STEAM Learning; Visible Thinking, and Leadership in the Age of Innovation. The Institute runs for four days in the summer offering a variety of sessions serving between 100 and 120 educators annually impacting approximately 7,800 students per year. Courses are designed to help build a K-12 vertically aligned CS/STEAM pathway for school districts.

The STEAM Summer Institute has built a reputation for cultivating the expertise of students as student teams take a leadership role creating curriculum and facilitating lessons for teachers. Through the years, students have led sessions on Python programming, Raspberry PI, and App Inventor with great success. At the institute we cultivate our future thought leaders.

For more information see this link: <https://www.sfsdsummerinstitute.com/>