Today, using just 30 inches of tape and no more than 10 straws, students at Reiffton were challenged to build a stand sturdy enough to hold a gourd three inches off the ground. From wobbly starts to gourd-geous success, students worked together to engineer (and re-engineer) their creations until they stood tall and strong! 

The challenge was part of bringing hands-on, inquiry-based STEM learning to complement library time in support of Pennsylvania’s STEELS standards—Science, Technology and Engineering, Environmental Literacy and Sustainability. The new STEELS standards have shifted library classes away from basic book circulation and toward collaborative and interdisciplinary instruction, says Mrs. Sally Lamm, Reiffton's librarian. "Library class at Reiffton is very much a hands-on and academic special now," she said. "The students seem to enjoy the activities because it is a chance to work with others and they seem to enjoy finding the solution to different builds or team building challenges."

School librarians are now central partners in implementing these new standards, she said, which emphasize 3-D learning, real-world phenomena and project-based investigations, rather than rote memorization of scientific facts. 

Today's fall-themed project certainly offered a festive twist to learning by offering a lesson that taught and reinforced this new approach, all of which were alive and well in Mrs. Karich's 6th grade class!