Ducks have escaped from the zoo, and the only ones who can get them back are the nearly 20 kids in Patricia Kuenzel’s third-grade classroom at St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School.
This is the scene on a recent Monday as the students break into small groups to solve the problem using small robotic cars. The robots are part of a simple coding kit from Sphero that teaches kids STEM skills; the students lay out colored tiles along a given path, and the car takes a different direction depending on the color, picking up their plastic ducks along the way.
Leading the students in the lesson is another student: Allie Cotton, a senior at Lakeview High School and the Calhoun Area Career Center who’s getting hands-on experience teaching as part of the CACC’s Education Academy.
Cotton’s placement in the class and the equipment used for the Sphero project are part of a new “K5 Crayons to Careers” program expansion funded by Kellogg Community College’s Bruin pre-Engineering Engagement Pipeline (BEEP) initiative. The funding has allowed the CACC to expand Crayons to Careers from one classroom a year ago to 13 classrooms in four schools across Calhoun County this semester.
“My teacher gave us the opportunity and we ran with it,” Cotton says, watching her students lay out their tiles. “It’s awesome just seeing how they learn, seeing how their minds work.”
The BEEP funding comes by way of a Michigan Economic Development Corporation grant awarded to KCC to increase pre-K through 12th grade engagement in engineering. It covers a paid stipend for Cotton and the other student teachers for two hours twice per week in the classroom; STEM books and equipment like the Sphero robotics tools, which can be kept by the classrooms for future classes; and transportation for an end-of-semester field trip to visit a local manufacturer.
The ultimate goal is to increase awareness of STEM and manufacturing careers among area youth, while providing positive early experiences with career exploration and exposure to local opportunities in manufacturing.
KCC Workforce Solutions Director Laura Zalle, who wrote the BEEP grant and oversees its administration, called the program a great collaboration. Internal partners include the College’s Bruin Youth Programming initiative of the Lifelong Learning Department as well as the College’s Elementary Education area, utilizing student-teacher mentors from the College’s various teacher education programs. Community partners include the Regional Educational Media Center in addition to the CACC, area elementary schools, local manufacturers and others.
“The project is really about engaging local students in early career exploration focused on STEM and advanced manufacturing, pairing CACC Education Academy students with elementary classrooms to deliver engaging STEM lessons and to organize an industry field trip,” Zalle says. “It’s really crossed over some silos and broken down some of the barriers we’ve had in the past.”
The project is just the latest of several BEEP initiatives launched over the past few months, which have included several STEM summer camps, robust Manufacturing Day events on KCC’s Regional Manufacturing Technology Center campus and at area manufacturing sites, and more.
For Cotton, it’s helping provide more comprehensive, real-life experiences on her path toward a career educating kids in the future, possibly as a children’s pastor. She and the other K5 Crayons to Careers student-teachers had the opportunity to present about their experiences with the initiative at the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning Student Technology Showcase at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing in December.
“I’m super grateful for the opportunity,” Cotton says, excited student voices rising as they watch their robots carry ducks along the paths they made. “It’s amazing and I love it. I love seeing kids get excited to learn.”
For more information about KCC’s BEEP initiative, visit kellogg.edu/beep.
This article first appeared in the December 2025 edition of BruIN magazine. To read the issue online, please visit kellogg.edu/bruinmagazine.
