STEAMM Electives
OVERVIEW
Students in 6th-8th grade have the opportunity to enhance their rigorous secondary-prep curriculum with a variety of STEAMM (science, tech/engineering, arts, mathematics, and movement) elective courses. Through academic excellence, we ensure that our students are future-proof by developing values, subject knowledge, and life skills. We believe that life and learning are iterative processes and that developing a critical curiosity is a benchmark of lifelong learning. Our STEAMM elective program is a merger of academic excellence and emotional intelligence and allows students to develop choice and diversity within the liberal arts.
Our aim is that our students would make conscious contributions to society and find their personal passion in science, technology, engineering, the arts, mathematics, movement (STEAMM), or all! All of our classes are interdisciplinary in approach which allows students to gain a deeper understanding of a variety of topics at a young age. Interdisciplinary teaching allows students to develop into innovators at a young age (
Wagner, 2012). Secondly, we incorporate movement into our curriculum through field trips, projects, and hands-on activities since movement increases brain health, creativity, and innovation (
Opezzo & Schwartz, 2014).
ELECTIVE CLASS SCHEDULE
Our middle school students will have the opportunity to take three elective STEAMM classes per year. Students rate their courses through an online survey at the beginning of each year. Eighth-grade students are placed in their courses first, then seventh grade, and then sixth graders. Each student enrolls in a total of nine courses during their middle school experience at Riviera Ridge.
STEAMM CERTIFICATES
Over the course of three years, students have the opportunity to earn STEAMM certificates in areas of their greatest interest. Students that are enrolled from 6th-8th need a total of 4 credits from each certificate area and earn a passing grade to receive a certificate. Students that join us in 7th grade (and are enrolled in 7th-8th) need a total of 3 credits from each certificate area and earn a passing grade to receive a certificate.
The liberal arts certificate which is an interdisciplinary certificate requires students to take one STEM, one art, and one FREE choice course per year. Students that were enrolled in the Extensions program for 2020-2021 will automatically receive a liberal arts certificate for their well-rounded education in STEAMM.
Certificates Include:
Science
Technology/Engineering
Mathematics
Performing Arts
Visual Arts
Liberal Arts
Service and Leadership`
SERVICE AND LEADERSHIP
To inspire students to live with a purpose beyond self, the design of our elective course offerings fosters social responsibility and leadership, through independent projects that benefit or empower our community. Community is defined as our school community, the City of Santa Barbara, the state of California, the United States, or the world at large. Each course offers at least one-trimester field trip that immerses our students in community issues. By the end of the trimester, most courses offer an opportunity to innovate solutions to build a better tomorrow through service and leadership.
STEAMM COURSE OFFERINGS 2021-2022
In the 2021-2022 school year we are offering the following courses.
- LED Circuits & Programming
- Pop Art
- Surfing
- Level Up, Agility & Movement
- Chess
- Intro to Theater
- Service Brigade
- Materials Science
- Yoga and mindfulness
- Podcasts
- "Stay Wild" Tropical Ecology
- Landscape Art
- School of Rock
- Disc Dynamics
- MVP: Sports & Stats
- Cooking and Culture
- Shake up Shakespeare
- SB Culture Blog
- Robotics I
- Robotics II
- Native American Studies
- Food! The Farm to Table Movement
- Set Design & Woodworking
- Musical
- Fishing & Sustainable Seafood
- Government and Model UN
- C-STEM Accelerated Mathematics