The South Atlanta STEAM Festival, which was held at South Atlanta High School on April 1, brought together students from each school in the cluster and gave them an opportunity to explore their curiosities with an engaging, hands-on experience.
Students dove right into the STEAM festival where they could build, learn, and discover the many applications that STEAM learning has to offer. Whether they were inquiring about how to grow plants from the Browns Mill Community Garden, coding a drone to fly to a specific location, launching a plastic rocket with air pressure, or watching the South Atlanta High School students DJ from their booth, there was something to capture the interest of all the students.
“The purpose of this STEAM Fest is to really excite all of the students in our feeder schools about STEAM and also about their path going from elementary to middle school to high school,” South Atlanta High School science and STEAM instructional coach Andrea Miller said. “It’s essential that our students in 5-12th grade are getting a good STEAM foundation so that when they graduate they don’t have to leave home to actually have good job opportunities and opportunities in higher education.”
The STEAM Fest was sponsored by the Atlanta Chapter of the Links, Incorporated, and more than 20 vendors were on campus for the STEAM Fest, including Trees Atlanta, Georgia Power, the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, the T.D. Jakes Foundation, and Produce’d. In the parking lot, students learned from fire fighters and EMTs as they showed off their emergency vehicles and educated students about their careers.
This year, the STEAM Fest added something new for high school students. Organizers brought in select speakers to host workshops where they could hear first-hand about potential career pathways that might interest them. There were also workshops in medicine, dentistry, medical marketing, financial literacy, voter registration, and education.
“In Georgia, there are going to be 186,000 jobs projected in the next five years that are STEM jobs,” said Crawford Long Middle School STEAM coordinator Jamison Murphy. “We need to make sure our students are exposed to STEM, so they can be prepared and motivated to jump into these careers.”
Murphy added that the students at Long Middle School, much like other attendees at the STEAM Festival, like to be hands-on. Being able to put their hands in the dirt and learn about plants, or configure a circuit board to produce light, or enter the code that sends a drone from point A to point B, helps keep students engaged and interested in STEM education.
“Our students learn better and our test scores have increased because students are more hands on implementing the STEM practices such as collaboration, use of technology, friendly competition and also critical thinking,” he said. “That’s a muscle that must be developed in our middle school students. At Long Middle School, students get a STEM-infused education that allows them to compete, whether they go to South Atlanta or any other school.”
The South Atlanta Cluster schools collaborate on events like the STEAM Festival to help emphasize continuity for the students. Providing exposure to STEAM pathways from kindergarten through high school keeps students engaged and helps them prepare for the opportunities at their next grade level.
“The reason why we do the STEAM Festival as a cluster event is so we can start to see what students need to know in middle school and high school,” said Humphries Elementary School STEAM instructional coach Shakita Lanier. “We’re trying to work together to make sure the students do not lose interest in STEM-related activities, but also make sure that if an activity is not available, we figure out how can we work together to make the students be successful.”
South Atlanta Cluster Schools Hosted First Annual Cluster-wide STEAM Partnership Breakfast
The South Atlanta Cluster of Atlanta Public Schools hosted its inaugural cluster-wide STEAM partnership breakfast on Wednesday, March 3, 2026, at South Atlanta High School. This collaborative event, proudly sponsored by the Atlanta (GA) Chapter of the Links, Incorporated, brought together all seven schools within the South Atlanta Cluster to showcase student achievement and future opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM).
The South Atlanta Cluster is home to seven nationally Cognia STEM-certified schools, all united in preparing students for the STE(A)M careers of the future: Cleveland Avenue Elementary School, John Wesley Dobbs Elementary School, Heritage Academy Elementary School, Joseph Humphries Elementary School, Emma Hutchinson Elementary School, Crawford Long Middle School, and South Atlanta High School. The cluster-wide STE(A)M Partnership Breakfast represents a unified effort among the cluster schools to inspire students and engage the community.
Not only were educators, community leaders, potential/respective business partners, and families able to learn about the impact of STEAM education on student achievement in the South Atlanta Cluster, but they were able to hear opening remarks from Ms. Melissa Adams, vice president of the Atlanta (GA) Chapter of the Links, Incorporated and closing remarks from Mr. Greg Clay and Councilman Antonio Lewis, Deputy Chief of Staff to Atlanta Mayor Andre’ Dickens and Atlanta City Council Representative respectively.
About the South Atlanta Cluster
The South Atlanta Cluster consists of seven Atlanta Public Schools serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade: Cleveland Avenue Elementary School, John Wesley Dobbs Elementary School, Heritage Academy Elementary School, Joseph Humphries Elementary School, Emma Hutchinson Elementary School, Crawford Long Middle School, and South Atlanta High School. The schools work collaboratively to provide consistent, high-quality STEAM education as students progress through the cluster with vertical alignment supporting graduates’ entrance into their choice of the “Four Es” Employment, Enrollment in College, Enlistment in the military, or Entrepreneurship. All students gain competence in skills that support them for lifelong success, from collaboration and innovative technology use to communication, competition, and creative thinking as part of the Atlanta Public Schools STEM Learner Profile. Each school within the cluster has attained national Cognia STEM certification and is currently pursuing Georgia STEAM certification. For more information about Atlanta Public Schools’ commitment to STEAM instruction, contact Dr. Warren Edwards at wedwards@atlanta.k12.ga.us.
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