LAB NOTES

Welcome to the Lab!

Welcome to a brand-new year of STEM at da Vinci Middle School! Whether you're joining us for the first time as a 6th grader or returning for another year, we are incredibly excited about what is ahead. Over the summer, we have been working hard to rethink, rebuild, and reimagine what our STEM classroom can be.

And when we say rebuild, we mean it.

Our STEM Lab has undergone a major transformation. The room has been redesigned to become a space where students can create, collaborate, experiment, build, test, fail, redesign, and try again.

New equipment. New capabilities. New spaces to work.

But the biggest upgrade isn't the room. It's what we're going to do inside it.

Welcome to 3P Learning

This year, we're continuing to push beyond the traditional classroom with our approach to learning:

We call it 3P Learning.

Instead of always learning math and science separately and asking, “When am I ever going to use this?”, students will encounter situations where they actually need those skills to accomplish something.

Sometimes they'll be given a project to create. Sometimes they'll face a problem that needs to be solved. Sometimes they'll investigate a place and figure out what is happening.

Along the way, students will use mathematics, science, engineering, technology, research, communication, creativity, and teamwork.

The STEM Lab Got an Upgrade

If you saw our classroom last year, you might not recognize parts of it now.

We've spent the summer transforming the space into a true STEM learning lab designed around making and doing.

Students will have opportunities to work with technologies and tools that allow ideas to move from a sketch on paper to something they can actually hold, test, demonstrate, or improve.

Students shouldn't just learn about innovation. They should experience it.

The STEM Lab isn't finished because a STEM Lab is never really finished. As our students grow, our capabilities will grow with them. And we have some pretty exciting plans for where this is headed.

Introducing the New dVMS STEM Website

This year we're also launching the dVMS STEM Website!

Think of it as the digital home of our STEM program.

Throughout the year, we'll use the site to showcase what's happening inside the Lab, share resources and information, celebrate student work, and give families a window into what students are creating and learning.

As the year progresses, the website will grow right alongside the program.

So bookmark it and check back often. You never know what might show up next.

What's Coming This Year?

We're not giving everything away in the first Lab Notes. Where's the fun in that?

What we can tell you is that we've spent a lot of time asking one question:

This year, our students are going to help us answer it.

There will be opportunities to design. To build. To experiment. To solve problems. To make things that actually work. To share ideas with people beyond our classroom.

And maybe even to do a few things that people don't normally expect middle school students to be able to do.

We have some big ideas. You'll hear about them soon.

Our Goal

We want students to leave our classroom knowing more math and science than when they entered. But we also want them to leave knowing something else:

When the first idea doesn't work—redesign it. When the answer isn't obvious—investigate it. When you don't know how—learn. When somebody says it can't be done—test that assumption.

That's the mindset we want to build this year.

From the Lab

We are incredibly excited to welcome our students back and open the doors to the newly redesigned STEM Lab.

There will be successes. There will absolutely be failures.

There will probably be some broken prototypes, unexpected results, last-minute redesigns, and more than a few moments when someone says, “Wait…what if we tried this?”

Welcome to the 2026–2027 dVMS STEM program.

Let's build something.