Recently, Garrett County Public High School’s FIRST Robotics Team 1629, GaCo, was able to partner with AnEmpoweredGirl, a non-profit that recently visited Comoros, a small country off the coast of Southeast Africa. During their visit to Comoros last week, AnEmpoweredGirl taught GaCo’s “STEM Waypoint” lessons to over thirty students. GaCo was able to provide the LEGO Top Spinner kits for the lessons and “Sticky-Stickies” AnEmpoweredGirl used to promote “Human Connectivity.” Sticky-Stickies are GaCo’s version of Makey-Makey, a commercial product used for teaching about electrical circuits.
The LEGO Top Spinner lesson is the same lesson GaCo students teach to every third-grade student in Garrett County, empowering third graders with a higher understanding of multiplication. Over the past twelve years, GaCo students have taught this particular lesson to over 10,000 students – mostly in Garrett County, but also throughout the central Appalachian region, and wherever the team travels to compete. In addition to their third-grade lesson, GaCo has lessons its students teach to every Garrett County second- through fifth-grader, with plans to implement a new “STEM Waypoint” lesson for first grade this school year. GaCo high school students who now teach these lessons were once taught these lessons as elementary students!
GaCo’s STEM Waypoint lessons have gained worldwide recognition for how they empower student success in STEM. GaCo designs its lessons to be engaging, featuring many “aha” moments, standards-based, scalable for multiple grade levels, and measurable. GaCo students have presented their lessons at many K-12 education conferences, including Maryland’s Common Ground Conference, West Virginia’s Science Teachers Association Conferences, as well as the 2025 Computer Science Teacher Association (CSTA) conference. The theme of their presentations is how high school students can make a systemic impact in their schools and school districts. That is, make a difference for every student, whether they participate in a robotics team or not.
As always, GaCo is very grateful and wishes to thank its many donors and the Garrett County community for their very gracious support, which enables the team to impact every student in Garrett County and many, literally, around the world. For more information about GaCo’s STEM Waypoint lessons, please email gaco@garrettcountyschools.org.
