The STEAM Center is a unique facility that serves all students of Allen ISD. This facility supports high school students in STEAM-related coursework, while also providing the district with its own field experience site for elementary and middle school students. Additionally, it provides an opportunity for learning partnerships with the community and local businesses. The STEAM Center has purposefully designed spaces that provide an innovative learning environment both inside the building and outdoors.
The school was inspired by STEAM-related industries, growing career needs, and the opportunity to expose students to complex processes in a natural and conducive learning environment. This produced specialized spaces within the school to intentionally support academic content. The site facilitates experiential learning on the outdoor trails, prairie, and pond. The site includes interpretative plaques that explain scientific or mathematical concepts about the specialized features, such as identified decomposing logs, wind turbines, and bioswales.
Throughout the building, a variety of innovative learning spaces exists to support acquisition of future ready skills. Focused intentions on flexibility and collaboration produced various learning spaces aligned to identify content expectations. Flight, whose name is inspired by the district’s Eagle mascot, is the tiered learning stair located in the center of the building offering space for students to engage in collaboration and presentations. There is a large space at the bottom of Flight, designed to accommodate a robotics competition arena. Unique spaces throughout the facility include a makerspace, innovation hubs, workshop, collaboration coves, and huddle rooms.
Transparency and natural light provide ample opportunity for students to connect to the outdoors, with a full view of the natural landscape that surrounds the building. All labs include direct access to the outdoors for testing product designs. All second level classroom spaces include windows that overlook the STEAM labs below and the landscape beyond.
This facility is like no other. It offers not only a STEAM environment for high school students, but also serves as a field destination for K-8 students where designed experiential learning aligned with STEAM curricula is prevalent. The K-8 entrance is marked by the colorful Ellipse Theater, which provides seating for 250 students for panels, films, and guest speakers. Students have opportunities to innovate and design in the makerspace as well as five learning studios that overlook high school labs below.