 Cayuna Range Elementary has been awarded with the inaugural 2018 STEM Innovation Award. Our Sarah Winkelman takes us to the classroom to see what the students are learning through the program. Then once you do that you go over to the code, you go to control flow. That's Allison Larson who teaches all the STEM classes for students kindergarten through sixth grade at Cayuna Range Elementary with what has grown massively after starting with seven students in an after-school program in 2014. We're reaching all of our 350 students. They come in here once every three days. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and are all incorporated into the classroom through their tech and innovation class time. Just prepare our students for their futures and what they're going to be asked to do outside of the classroom when they become adults. Today the students learned how to create their own virtual reality environment and then put on the goggles to explore. I'm making a winter and I have ice skating and a little cat. They're coding, they're programming, they're designing, they're engineering. So it's just the level of rigor changes as the students get older. And the students get challenged more as they progress through the program. Kind of have to like make stuff bigger or wider and stuff and sometimes that gets confusing and you have to do some coding too. All in an effort to give the students tools to use outside of the classroom. Part of this class is it is very rigorous and so they do have to learn to never, you know, not give up. They need to try it over and over and over again and that's part of their grade in this class. The school just received the STEM Innovation Award from the Minnesota Elementary School Principles Association in partnership with the Science Museum of Minnesota. We're the only school in the state that won this award this year so we find that as an honor. Even after being recognized for their efforts the school shows no signs of slowing down. It's great to be on the forefront of STEAM education and we just want to keep moving forward and inspire others and being inspired by others as well. With a goal of reaching outside of the walls at Cayuna Range. We're all growing as school districts in this area. Reporting in Crosby, Sarah Winckelman, Lakeland News. The Science Museum of Minnesota is providing $300 in programming for the school. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.