It’s no secret that hands-on STEM is transformational for high schoolers—giving them not just technical skills, but the confidence to lead, solve problems, and innovate. That’s why Texas’s Katy ISD built the Robert R. Shaw Center for STEAM: a space for robotics teams to dream big.
But when Liz Dethloff stepped in as Instructional Specialist, she saw something more. If these experiences could shape futures in high school, why not start sooner? According to developmental research, they should: Neuroscience shows that early exposure to complex, collaborative challenges helps reinforce neural pathways for long-term learning.
Inspired by both science and possibility, Liz helped transform the robotics practice space into a STEAM playground: an interactive, curiosity-driven environment where elementary students explore, create, and lead their own learning.
What STEAM Really Looks Like
The Robert R. Shaw Center for STEAM is practically built around Liz’s vision. At its heart lies a spacious robotics practice field—a hub of imagination—surrounded by eight breakout rooms designed to support full-body, hands-on exploration.
The space was bursting with potential, and Liz knew the right experiences would reveal to kids just how exhilarating and creative STEM can be. For many Katy ISD students, calling these opportunities “life changing” is no exaggeration.
“Whether it’s girls not typically guided toward hands-on experiences, or children from low-income families unaccustomed to the thrill of holding resources this engaging, kids and parents tell us the day they spent at the Shaw Center was the best day of their lives,” Liz shares. “It’s heartbreaking.”
For Liz, memorable, hands-on STEAM shouldn’t be a rare event—it should happen every day. Passionate and equipped with Pitsco’s standards-aligned resources, Liz has “STEM-ified” the elementary curriculum—infusing open inquiry, engineering design, and real-world problem-solving into daily instruction. It’s an approach that bridges play and rigor, turning curiosity into capability.
“Data analysis is one of the biggest challenges students face,” Liz explains. “So we use competitions like bottle rocket car races. Kids work together to calculate speed, time runs, create scatterplots, and reflect on performance. Students that clock the fastest times become peer coaches, sharing what worked and why.”
Though this might sound like a full-day immersion—and it is—the Shaw Center’s impact lies in the variety of experiences students engage with during a single visit.
“When students come here, they rotate through five to seven different STEM experiences,” Liz says. “Today, they’re building terrariums to study ecosystems, designing 3D-printed wind turbines, racing bottle rocket cars, programming in the robotics room, and exploring astronomy in our portable planetarium.”
This approach reframes STEM as a lens for understanding and engaging with the world., It helps students see that being STEM-inclined doesn’t look the same for everyone. One student might calculate the pressure needed to launch a straw rocket to its target height, while another is drawn to the mystery of a self-sustaining terrarium. Both engage in STEM—both discover their unique connection to it.
Embracing the Learning Zone
At the Shaw Center students learn that complex STEM concepts are only a few tries and a resilient mindset away from mastery.
“For many of these students,” Liz says, “they’re holding equipment for the first time—and their uses aren’t always intuitive. But it’s important they practice cooperative skills—problem solving as a team, communicating observations, listening to others—and try to figure it out without adult interference.”
It’s not always easy to watch students struggle, Liz admits. But the growth that comes from failure often outweighs immediate success. Her approach isn’t just instinct—it’s grounded in learning science.
Psychologist Lev Vygotsky described a “Learning Zone,” where true development happens when students are pushed beyond their comfort zones but supported with the tools to succeed. That’s exactly what the Shaw Center is designed to do.
“I rarely give full instructions,” Liz explains. “With the bottle rocket cars, for example, I show a completed model and have them take it apart. Then they build their own, thinking critically about what it needs and how the parts fit.”
When students don’t get the car built—or a robot functioning—on the first try, they naturally feel vulnerable. But that vulnerability is essential to innovation. Research consistently shows a strong connection between resilience and long-term engagement: when fear of failure holds people back, they avoid risk. But without risk, growth can’t happen.
By regularly placing students in challenging, supported environments, they grow comfortable with discomfort. That shift—learning to trace and correct faults rather than avoid them—fosters the very skills innovation demands: critical thinking, creativity, and confidence in the face of the unknown.
Shaping Success Mindsets
As students grow and begin to imagine who they might become, educators have two powerful opportunities: to expand their sense of what’s possible through real-world experiences, and to spark growth by challenging them to step beyond their comfort zones. At Katy ISD, these aren’t abstract goals—they’re as tangible as the STEM students explore, build, and bring to life with their own hands.
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