Tracy Elmore STEM Customer Story

Enriching classrooms with STEM resources.

Tracy Elmore

Kershaw County School District Science Coach, South Carolina

Lugoff-Elgin Middle School

Tracy Elmore was recently named the 2020 South Carolina STEM Educator of the Year and the 2022 Learning Blade National Educator of the Year with 35+ years of teaching experience.

Meet a science coach bringing the future of STEM careers to students with Learning Blade.

For Tracy Elmore, STEM has always been her passion and she utilized STEM concepts before it was even a widely used term through hands-on activities in her elementary classrooms. Learning Blade was introduced to Ms. Elmore during the move to virtual instruction during the pandemic. She was impressed with all it had to offer and began using it in her virtual classroom. After normal school routines resumed, she integrated it into her in-person classrooms and has been using it ever since, utilizing the missions as enrichment and reinforcement alongside the curriculum.

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Students were more engaged, they were excited about what they were doing and learning and could have some good discussions about STEM careers

- Tracy Elmore

One of the greatest impacts she’s found in using Learning Blade is the spark of interest in seeing the real-world relevance from what students are learning in their courses to careers they are interested in. Some students will even have the eye-opening realization their parents have a STEM career. It’s also built up her knowledge base, giving her tools to guide her students and their parents in making decisions about post-high school plans based on their STEM interests. She credits Learning Blade with providing a future-forward lens to STEM careers as well, anticipating what the changing role of STEM may mean in the short and long term.

There are jobs out there that haven’t even been developed yet that they’re going to be working on. Learning Blade helps them to see that and to be able to think critically and problem solve so they’ll be better prepared for those jobs.

- Tracy Elmore

Hear from Tracy’s Learning Blade Students!

Learning Blade has shown me many career opportunities that I never knew about.

- Reid

I loved robots, but never knew there were so many careers that were involved with robots.

- Cheyenne

I love that Learning Blade explains real examples and makes me think about how I’ll use these skills outside of school.

- Devin

Get Inspired: Tracy’s Favorite Learning Blade Missions

Check out the Missions Tracy’s students have tried out–bring them to your classroom next!

Rescue Robot Mission

Tracy’s students learned about mechanical engineering, electric circuits, industrial designers, and what all that entails for a robot to be built and to work. This course brought up a great discussion about the role of robotics and making certain jobs obsolete. It prompts the idea that robotics don’t really take jobs away, they just become different jobs. Instead of needing just a mechanical engineer, you may also now need a software engineer and a programmer.

Lightweight Aircraft Mission

Eighth-grade science students built paper airplanes and Bossa wood airplanes or gliders with the 3D printing guides from Learning Blade. They brought these lightweight aircrafts to their MOD class and flew them to see which flew better, or for a longer distance. MOD students enjoyed that collaboration with the general education class which created a wonderful opportunity to share a Learning Blade mission with them as well.

Submarine Building Mission

Tracy is excited to incorporate the Submarine Building mission into eighthgrade science classrooms because it matches those math and science standards. She believes the students will enjoy learning about manufacturing as well as science skills: fluency and density. It’s a great opportunity to transition from physical science to earth science to life science in eighth grade, and this mission will do that for them.