Guest Blog: Morning of a Digi-Bridge Virtual STEAM Lab Student

Google Fiber works with organizations across the country to help address digital equity issues in our communities. We love to share their stories on the Google Fiber blog and hear about the impact of their amazing work from the people they serve. 

About the program:

Digi-Bridge and Google Fiber have teamed up to launch free virtual STEAM Lab programs designed to engage underserved 4th through 8th graders in Mecklenburg and Cabarrus Counties (including Charlotte and Concord) in a hands-on exploration of technology in the arts, coding, gaming and design engineering.

STEAM Lab arrived after Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reported a significant decrease in Science EOG scores in 5th and 8th grade from 2019 to 2021. STEAM Lab provides an engaging learning experience hands-on, yet virtual experience for partner school students by pairing personal learning kits of materials with virtual instruction led by the student's teachers. This additional learning time for students is an effort to promote academic exploration and increased testing scores.

Today, we’re spotlighting a STEAM Lab student, I.T., who has been participating in two courses with Digi-Bridge’s Virtual STEAM Lab — the Design Engineering Process, where students learn the fundamentals of building using geometric concepts, and Art & Tech, where students learn about foundational graphic design skills, such as pixel art and stop-motion animation. Check out his experience below!  

Meet I.T.:

Hello, My name is Isaiah “I.T.” Twyman and I am a 5th grade student at Druid Hills Academy in Digi-Bridge’s Virtual STEAM Lab sponsored by Google Fiber. I’m 11 years old and enjoy playing video games, coding and soccer after school. 

I live off in Northwest Charlotte. I like it, but I really like being near my grandparents in Mallard Creek. My grandfather lives in a house and teaches me a lot of hands-on things, like how to plug tires, how to work with circuits and how to stop and enjoy life! We love going on walks. Also, during the program he helped with my circuit greeting card project. 

Those are all the things that I like. Also, if you didn’t know, my dream is to recreate Jurassic Park! STEAM Lab is cool because I like creating new stuff all the time! For example, a zip line or playing with electric circuits or anything related to video games. 

I really enjoyed the Pixel Art. I'm into coding and Digi-Bridge made it easy to understand. I love trying to code and make video games. I actually like to create games in my free time!

Here’s what a regular morning in Virtual STEAM Lab looks like for me:

6:00- I brush my teeth and wash my face. If I have time, I play my game and just chill out. 

8:00-8:45- I will eat a breakfast that I can make, like a Cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. 

8:45- Set-up for my classroom in the kitchen. We sit separately from my sister. 

9:00- I greet my teachers Ms. Nicole and Mr. Moats. Then, we start off by sharing our emotions so the teacher knows how we are doing. 

9:15- Then Ms. Nicole tells us that we will get started. They sometimes show us a video and tell us what to do. 

10:00- Show the teacher what we did. We will code on SCRATCH if we finish early. 

11:00- Start cleaning up after finishing. We send a picture to Ms. Nicole and then we can eat part of the project if it’s edible! 

Thank you for reading as I shared my morning as a DIGI-Bridge Virtual STEAM student. Have a good day! 

Posted by Isaiah “I.T.” Twyman, 5th grade student at Druid Hills Academy