From staff reports:

Saghalie Middle School will host its first STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) open house from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 at 33914 19th Ave. SW.

The event is aimed at showing off the “students utilizing one-to-one technology and the students’ first STEM project.” According to the district, free food, music and door prizes will be on hand for those who attend.

According to Federal Way Public Schools (FWPS), Saghalie utilizes a project-based approach to learning for students to learn 21st century skills and STEM. This is the first year Saghalie will be a whole project-based STEM school, according to the district.

Along with this, FWPS touts that “Saghalie will have one-to-one technology, with learning tablets for eery student.” This marks Saghalie as relatively unique, according to FWPS, as one of the few comprehensive middle schools in the region that offers one-to-one technology.

Students realize the unique opportunity this “one-to-one” technology ratio provides them.

“We are more involved in technology than others and we understand it better because we are using it all the time in all our classes,” said Desiree Saucdeo-Kropp, an eighth-grader at the school, in a FWPS news release. “It’s making learning a lot more fun and exciting for us, because we are always doing new things with our tablets.”

Seventh-grader Abi Marten said the tablets have made learning a lot more engaging for her.

“If you need to access information, you can at your fingertips. The learning pad makes it real easy to locate work and data that I can use in class. I like having a learning pad better than a textbook. It’s more fun and exciting for me,” she said.