PTAA Colorado Springs STEAM-Focused Charter School K-9th

Academics

What is STEAM?

STEAM is the educational acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. It is STEM, with Creativity and the Arts infused within all curricular disciplines. Young scholars have a natural curiosity to make sense of the world around them. They have a strong drive to observe, explore, and discover. Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy (PTAA) understands these innate abilities and embraces the importance of the creative process as well as how it promotes innovative thinking, which is key to STEM education and future STEM fields.

Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy/Colorado is a K-8th tuition-free STEAM Academy. Our focus is to prepare our young scholars for their educational journey and lay a strong foundation for their future. We want our scholars to be excited about the STEAM disciplines, including pre-engineering concepts through Makerspace activities, foundational computer literacy, and coding. Our students love learning concepts that will prepare them for a Scaffolded approach to STEM education, which is a pillar in our K-12 STEM Schools.

PTAA is a Project Lead the Way school and uses the K-5 PLTW Launch curriculum. Our teachers are certified to teach PLTW Launch curriculum, which includes 43 modules aligned to Colorado K-5 Standards. PLTW Launch’s 43 interdisciplinary modules bring learning to life. The program empowers students to adopt a design-thinking mindset through compelling activities, projects, and problems that build upon each other and relate to the world around them. As students engage in hands-on activities in computer science, engineering, and biomedical science, they become creative, collaborative problem solvers ready to take on any challenge.