Longfellow Middle School students see real-world STEM impact during construction site tour

STEM outside the classroom

Longfellow Middle School STEM students get construction tour

WAUWATOSA -- Students from Wauwatosa's Longfellow Middle School got to see their classroom lessons applied during a unique field trip on Tuesday, May 21. This, as they participated in hard hat tour of the new Lutheran Home Memory Care Center.

"We came here to like, look, and to see the process of the construction site," said Ellie Baudry, seventh-grader.

Decked out in glasses and hard hats, the group got to tour an active construction site.

"'Wow! This just got serious.' That's what it felt like," said Nick Schlender, seventh-grader.

Longfellow Middle School STEM students get construction tour

Teachers from Longfellow Middle School got the chance to show their students that the STEM stuff they learn in the classroom has real-world applications.

Ellie Baudry

"We've been working on different things in math and things that are with the design process," said Baudry. "So like, 'Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, and Improve.'"

Roughly two dozens students got to see the ins and outs of erecting a new building from floor to ceiling and everything in between.

"How designs on paper really come into real life," Schlender said.

Projects of this magnitude require architects and builders to use math, science and design to make plans a reality.

Longfellow Middle School STEM students get construction tour

"I really thought it was cool that we could experience each of the rooms," Baudry said.

As students walked the site, their guides -- construction managers -- discussed the thought process for building rooms.

Longfellow Middle School STEM students get construction tour

"How it went from a blueprint to where they are now and where it's going to go," said Baudry.

As things wrapped up, students got to leave their own creative addition to the new building by signing their names on the ground, leaving a mark on what was sure to be an already memorable field trip.

Longfellow Middle School STEM students get construction tour

The construction site was roughly 64,000 square feet in all. Builders told FOX6 News it would be a memory care living facility when completed in late fall 2019.