King George Middle School has been implementing the Virginia Demonstration Project (VDP) Curriculum since the program's beginning in 2006. Last year King George Middle took a different approach to implementation. For twelve academic days, seventh grade students completed robotics lessons in their life science class. What was different? Males and females participated in same sex groups. The females were paired with a female science teacher and female engineer and the males were paired with the two male science teachers and a male engineer. Jessica Drinks , the female science teacher that has been with the VDP since 2006, noticed many pros in the same sex approach and many differences in behaviors and actions. When Drinks explained the success of the implementation she was really charged by the experience. While observing her students Drinks said she was overwhelmed with the the understanding of why she became a teacher in the first place. After hearing Drinks explain her student's experiences during the implementation, the Stem Education Alliance team began the process of evaluating King George's homogeneous grouping of students.
