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Robotics Challenge ISK/CG Team Partnership Journey (2013-2020)

  • Our journey into partnership between the International School of Kenya students and the Children’s Garden Home and School Students has been amazing.
  • We have been guided by a keen sense of what might be possible, eventhough we could not see it, yet.
  • Students were driven by passion.
  • We found that this model is sustainable and replicable.

Our Goals

  • Find ways to learn technology as a joint adventure in getting to know each other across economic and cultural divides.
  • Build relationships, begin to understand and know each other.
  • Get to see each person’s superpowers and use in a team.
  • Have fun together.
  • Be open to all possibilities and opportunities.

2013-2016: The Incubation and Exploration Years

  • A connection was made through the Global Issues Service Summit at ISK in 2012.
  • Through the seeds of conversations about some hopes of students from Children’s Garden Home and School to learn technology, some ideas germinated.
  • Time was made for students to learn basics before collaborating with ISK students.
  • Robotics and coding became the vehicles for creating relationships and learning from each other.
  • The Program became a joint after-school collaborative journey.

2016-2017:  Venturing out to Collaborate with other Schools

  • Lego was now a form of building relationships and learning together between our two schools.
  • We worked in teams that were balanced between school, age, and gender.
  • Challenges were set as former participants became the coaches for new team members.
  • Worked with Christine Ach to help start the East Africa FIRST Lego League.
  • Loved the feeling of success in meeting student teams from other schools.
Notable Growth This Year
  • Participated in the first Annual East Africa event with two teams composed of students from both ISK and CGH.
  • People became interested in the model of having two schools in each team.

2017-2018:  Student Leaders Routinely Guide Program and Students

  • The Hydrodynamics FIRST Lego League mat became the learning platform.
  • Student Leaders began formulating ways to guide and nurture students.
  • Students from both schools freely shared engineering and coding expertise and valued all contributions.
  • Students used the Design Cycle to create a water-related project important in Kenya.
  • Invited a Rift Valley School to collaborate on techniques for building and coding.
Notable Growth This Year:
  • Student leadership became established
  • Sharing ideas and becoming friends with a competing team became a routine.

2018-2019:  Student Led Partnership Becomes Established

  • Student Leaders meet to create routines for training new student coaches, and participate with adults in coach trainings.
  • Leaders prepare to become referees for the competitions.
  • Students create a website for resources to study space, especially pertinent because of the Mars landing.
  • Inviting competing teams to share ideas and techniques throughout the season becomes the gold standard of this model.

Notable Growth This Year:

  • An advisory council is formed to help guide the future.
  • Core values are discussed and lived

2019-2020 How a Pandemic Launched Us to a New Level!

  • The new Lego season, City Shaper, set students thinking about how they could improve city living with technology.
  • A project idea included how to use a biomass digester to create biogas as a solution instead of burning wood.
  • Then…..face to face learning stopped and we realized that the annual games would not be able to be held.
Notable Growth this Year

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Childrens Garden Home STEM Lab: (2020 to Present)

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