Just because they're in high school doesn't mean older students can't enjoy playing with legos!
Students in Ms. Williams science classes at High School West recently participated in the LEGO Build the Change (BTC) Challenge.
BTC LEGO Challenges are released monthly and open to students at any grade level. In keeping with our curriculum, Ms. Williams chose for her students to learn about the conservation issues faced by two threatened birds, the Red Knot and the Salt Marsh Sparrow, who rely upon the continued health of our Long Island shores.
Students were tasked with designing ways to help protect the birds (and ourselves) from impacts of climate change, coastal erosion, and sea level rise. The LEGO company gifted Ms. Williams (and teachers around the globe participating in the TAG/BTC Project) a large bin of LEGOs, and all summer they have been brainstorming together to share ideas that encourage the students to have fun, improve their local communities, and get their conservation ideas across using the LEGOS.
After competing in the first BTC LEGO Challenge last year in the MakerSpace with Ms. Masrour and Mr. Needles, Ms. Williams said she couldn’t wait to offer it to students again this year.
“Our classes pretty quickly learned that there are LEGO fans and engineers everywhere-LEGO’s aren’t just for kids!”
Fun fact: Smithtown East Alumni and our new High School West Technical Support Aide, Michael Saladino, is also quite the LEGO builder and engineer advocate. “We were grateful for his expertise with the product," Ms. Williams said.
