Authored By Savannah Bennett
https://www.facebook.com/NOOGAtoday/videos/2006820676016185/ On Wednesday morning, Amazon surprised students and teachers at Hardy Elementary by donating $10,000 worth of STEM school supplies. “We’re really excited to support their STEM program,” Director of Operations at Amazon Travis Maynard said about the school. Some of the items the students will now be able to use include Kindle Fires, educational robots, a microscope and a 3D printer. All the supplies support the school’s science, technology, engineering and math programs. “We worked with the local community to see where the opportunity is and what the need is and how we can support that need,” Maynard said. After the school assembly announcing the donation, a few second-grade students put the technology donated to use right away in a hands-on project lead by Amazon Chattanooga’s fulfillment center in the school’s new science, technology, engineering, arts and math lab. 
This is the first year that Hardy Elementary School has had its STEAM lab for the students to learn more about science and technology. “This donation is going to provide the students with opportunities to have even higher-level engagement [and] be problem solvers and risk takers,” Hardy Elementary School Principal Robin Bambrey said. The school made sure to provide students in every grade level with items and future activities to advance their knowledge. “We looked at our standards to see what that students in each grade level were going to cover in science and technology, so we have made sure to purchase materials that connected with those,” Bambrey said. Students will now be able to learn new skills that the school has not been able to cover in the past. “We have owl pellets that students are going to dissect; we have Spheros and other technology devices that they’re going to code, so we’re going to do a lot of coding this year which the students haven’t been involved in before,” Bambrey said. The donation is already making a positive impact on student learning with the project conducted Wednesday, and with many activities planned for the future. “We are grateful, and we can’t say thank you enough,” Bambrey said. “It’s going to be a wonderful school year.” Savannah Bennett is a contributing writer. She currently attends UTC where she is a feature writer for the student newspaper, The University Echo. She is a double major in communication and English. Savannah was also a participant in the Disney College Program during the fall of 2017.
