All aboard the STEAM train!

Quincy L. explains how the example set by Mary Somerville encouraged Ada Byron Lovelace to pursue her passion for mathematics.

At Accella, with some of our younger students, we recently read Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine. Laurie Wallmark‘s book, lavishly illustrated by April Chu, is more than just a wonderful biography of the nineteenth-century woman now acknowledged as the first computer programmer. It’s a carefully and lovingly crafted STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) recruitment tool targeted at children ages 5-8.

Why was a scientist and mathematician named Mary Fairfax Somerville an important role model for Ada? Quincy L.’s answer to this reading comprehension homework question (see the image above) was flawless but we’re happy to report that each of her classmates also hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head.

At Accella, we’re unabashed STEAM maniacs and we prepare our reading comprehension materials completely in house. That’s how we’re able to fill our curriculum with books like Wallmark’s ode to Ada Lovelace or the hands-on look at the inner workings of automobiles (How Cars Work: The Interactive Guide to Mechanisms that Make a Car Move) that we’re wrapping up now with classes of slightly older children or the introduction to gravity and astrophysics via black holes (A Black Hole Is NOT a Hole) that we’ve just begun exploring with some of our other students.