Schools can link science learning to real world innovations through hands-on labs and authentic engagement, fostering systems-based, interdisciplinary and critical thinking capacities. Unlike the humanities, life sciences innovations continue to manifest and transform the landscape every day. We need a way to keep the learning happening in schools current with the changes in this field. Acera has developed and pilot-tested a nine-unit biology curriculum that aligns with Next Generation Science Standards and offers lab activities such as gene editing with CRISPR and cultivating c-acnes using students’ own skin microbiome samples. Our Life Science Change Agent Teachers series and curricula tools are starting to change the face of high school biology in Massachusetts.

Reinventing High School Biology: Skin Microbiomes from Acera School on Vimeo.

Tech Hub enables students to emerge as community-minded technologists able to solve problems to benefit the whole school. More a philosophy than a place, Tech Hub can start as simply a cart in a cafeteria with one student fired up to be a knowledgable, technically skillful community member. Concurrently developing emotional intelligence skills and a wide array of technological abilities, Tech Hub members model and spread an attitude of fearlessness at using STEM tools to solve real problems.

Small children can understand big ideas, and computer science is no exception. Acera’s hands-on “Computers and Me” curriculum introduces early elementary students to computer science concepts, and is one example of many creative ways computational thinking and technical fluency can be developed throughout K-12 education, starting at age 5.  Pilot-tested and ready to translate for adoption by public schools, these computer science learning approaches help students become facile and fearless.

What if math classes are organized based on what each student is ready to learn, rather than by age? This frees students to learn based upon readiness and ability, without constraints due to age or curricula. Because there is always more than one way to solve a problem, flexible thinking and growth mindsets are valued over timed math tests, dispelling the notion that “speed” is the same as “intelligence.” Our approach to math unlocks the computational thinking skills that develop a student’s capacity for decision making, risk analysis, and connection between math and the world.

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