STEM Focus
STEM Education is an interdisciplinary approach to learning. We transform teaching and learning by providing students with engaging, real-world learning experiences to emphasize connections between school, community and global society (SVVSD).
At Timberline PK-8, we believe STEM is more than a subject—it’s a mindset. Through hands-on, inquiry-based learning, students build and apply critical skills in science, technology, engineering, and math to solve real-world problems.
In grades K–5, STEM is both integrated into daily classroom instruction and reinforced through a dedicated STEM Science class that students attend. This consistent, embedded approach helps students make meaningful connections across content areas while fostering curiosity, creativity, and collaboration.
At the middle school level, students can explore their interests and deepen their learning by selecting from a variety of STEM elective courses. These engaging options give students the opportunity to apply design thinking, build technical skills, and prepare for advanced STEM pathways in high school and beyond.
As a STEM-focus school, we are committed to empowering students with the innovation, problem-solving, and collaboration skills needed for success in a rapidly changing world.
In 6th-8th grades, the core subjects integrate STEM, students have a semester-long STEM elective, and students have an opportunity to choose four quarter-long STEM enrichment classes. As part of our philosophy, Timberline students learn the engineer’s design thinking process: empathy, define, ideate, prototype and feedback. The process enhances students’ learning in critical thinking, communication, creativity, collaboration and character.
As part of project-based learning, they use the process to create and design new products or experiences. They learn to make discoveries and ask questions in search of new understandings. Students become problem-solvers while thinking of others to make improvements to our world.