BILLINGS- Students have learned that mistakes and failure are good and necessary in science.
The Billings Public Schools showcased the benefits of Project Lead the Way at the Lincoln Center Board Room on Thursday.
The project teaches Science,Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) to students in kindergarten through the eighth grade.
Students learn from working on science projects.
Businesses in Billings donated about $1 million during the first three years of the project.
Those involved in education say the project brings engagement and involvement, and teaches collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity.
The kids have learned from their failures and mistakes.
“My first year of doing it was in first grade,” Zach Hertz, a sixth grader at Ben Steele Middle School. “We had to fail a lot in it. We had to fail to succeed.”
“It’s really magical,” said Amaya Leffler, another sixth grader at Ben Steele. “You have to persevere because you might use materials and then look at the criteria and realize that you can’t use that.”
“This really does teach perseverance and grit,” said Kim Anthony, K-8 curriculum executive director for the school district. “Never giving up, things don’t work the first time, you have to continue to work and mistakes are a way to learn. It’s simply just that way to get to success.”
Project Lead The Way encourages students to think about careers in kindergarten.
Both Zach and Amaya said they would like to be engineers.
Reporting by David Jay for MTN News
