The State Education Development Agency (Valsts izglītības attīstības aģentūra) is implementing the project “STEM and Civic Participation Activities for Broader Educational Experience and Career Choice,” whose aim is to diversify learning experiences, strengthen the link between knowledge and real life, and promote students’ understanding of the needs of the labor market. Our school is proud to be part of it!
In 2025/2026 school year, our students have had several STEM workshops. For example, they worked in teams to understand how to read instructions and construct a model step by step according to a given scheme.
The workshop began with a visual presentation which depicted various helicopters according to their application, meaning and structure (schemes). In the practical part, the Grade 2 students constructed a mechanical robot – a Helicopter according to the instructions given. At each step of the construction, the students read the diagram and identified, found and added the necessary construction details. When the base model was built, the students were given the task of adding their desired decorations for their Helicopter model from the remaining details. In this activity students also considered how an object made of a small set of pieces can be disassembled and made into a new object.
Before the winter break in another STEM workshop, students had an amazing visit from ROBO HUB SIA! They got hands-on experience creating their very own turtles. It was so exciting to follow the instructions and watch, piece by piece, as their turtles came to life.
But the fun didn’t stop there! The best part was making the turtles move — not just walking, but turning and navigating the space — all through programming! Seeing their creations respond to their commands was both thrilling and empowering, and the students were beaming with pride as their turtles came alive.
It was a wonderful reminder of how STEM lets imagination, problem-solving, and creativity meet technology, and the students couldn’t stop talking about their robotic turtles all day!
Visit VIAA webpage to learn more about the project
International School of Riga is a Candidate School* for the IB MYP. This school is pursuing authorization as an IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy—a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that ISR believes is important for our students. *Only schools authorized by the IB Organization can offer any of its four academic programmes: the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP), the Diploma Programme (DP), or the Career-related Programme (CP). Candidate status gives no guarantee that authorization will be granted. For further information about the IB and its programmes, visit http://www.ibo.org.
