Double Helix STEAM School

That's a wrap on another incredible year at Double Helix STEAM School! 🎉
Today we said some tearful goodbyes. To our eighth graders, who let us watch them become themselves through some of the hardest, most beautiful years a human gets to live through. To Ms. Deisy and Ms. Kimberly, who came to us straight out of college four years ago and grew up right alongside our students before leaving us to start new chapters. And to Ms. Quinn, who in just one year reminded us what it looks like to take creativity seriously, and who is off to pursue her Masters in painting.
To our families, thank you for trusting us with your kids. The partnership matters more than we can say.
This summer, we are preparing for something exciting. Next year we move into a new space with room to grow, welcome new teachers, and keep doing the work that has always been at the heart of Double Helix: giving kids a safe place to figure out who they are.
See you on the other side of summer. ☀️

🌮 Today we began saying goodbye to our 8th graders over lunch at Taqueria Del Sol, a Double Helix tradition we look forward to every year.
Between bites, we asked them to share their favorite Double Helix memories and the electives that stuck with them most. Listening to them reflect on how far they've come, from curious students to confident young people ready for high school, was a reminder of why we do this work.
To our 8th graders: you've shown us what perseverance, creativity, and community look like. Double Helix will always be your home base. Go do big things. 💙

📣 Spring Market & Elective Showcase Recap
This is what learning looks like at Double Helix STEAM School.
Today, our students highlighted everything they learned and created in their elective classes this semester. This showcase highlighted the entrepreneurs, performers, designers, and makers at Double Helix. In our Spring Market class, students built real businesses from the ground up: writing business plans, designing logos, calculating overhead and labor costs, and then selling their products at our Spring Market. That's not a simulation. That's the real thing.
Then our Elective Showcase brought the house down with:

🎭 Drama Club performing original student-written skits
🎸 A guitar solo from Strum, Pick & Play
🧱 Creations from Lego Class
📰 Canva Magazine Studio designs
🧵 Hand sewing projects
⚙️ Tabletop Rube Goldberg machines
🤹 Fidgeteers inventions
💭 Being Human reflections

Creativity. Critical thinking. Communication. Collaboration. Perseverance. Problem solving. Every one of our six STEAM Strands, in action.

✨ Diamond in the Rough: 6th Grade Wraps a Sparkling PBL Unit ✨
Our 6th graders just wrapped Diamond in the Rough, a project-based learning unit that turned geometry into something they could hold in their hands.
Working as jewelry designers for real clients, students applied serious math along the way:

📐 Calculating area of triangles and quadrilaterals by decomposition
📦 Finding the volume of prisms with fractional edges
📊 Graphing polygons on coordinate planes
✂️ Using nets to determine surface area

Once their designs were finalized, students brought their pieces to life using 3D printers, producing the actual jewelry for their clients. The unit culminated in a fashion show for our 8th graders, where designers presented their finished pieces, followed by a field trip to Outpost Gold & Gem Mining in Helen, GA. Students mined for gems, toured a jeweler's workshop, and talked with a working jeweler about how he designs for his clients, the same process they had just lived through.
This is what STEAM education is all about: real math, real audiences, real-world connections.
🌟 in action: creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, perseverance, problem solving

Telling Honest Stories with Data 📊

Our 8th grade Algebra 1 students just wrapped a capstone project built around one big question: How can we use statistics to tell an honest story that helps our community make better decisions?

Each student chose a local issue they cared about, gathered and analyzed real data, and presented their findings to community leaders and families. They didn't just crunch numbers. They wrestled with what the data actually meant, how to represent it honestly, and how to communicate it to an audience that mattered.

This is what the six STEAM Strands look like in action:

🎨 Creativity in how they framed their stories
🧠 Critical Thinking in interpreting the data
🗣️ Communication in presenting to a real audience
🤝 Collaboration with peers and community partners
💪 Perseverance through messy, real-world numbers
🔍 Problem Solving at every step

Proud of the thinking, the honesty, and the courage it took to stand in front of community leaders and say, here's what the data shows.

Special thanks to our community leaders for taking an interest in what our Narwhals have to say!
Mara Zuniga For-Mayor, Sharon Miller for Mayor of Athens, Eric Gisler For Georgia, Dexter Fisher for Mayor, and Tim Denson, Mayor of Athens-Clarke County Candidate for hearing them out! Thank you LaKeisha Gantt for Mayor of Athens for taking an interest as well.

We also had the pleasure of having Project: SAFE, WUGA FM, and Envision Athens for accepting our invitation!