- Sep 4, 2023

Weekly Update + Upcoming Offerings

ST(EM-Pathy)

STEM-pathy was started last year as part of Mr. Nick's social skills offering for our Roots group. This year he is extending this opportunity to our older students on Thursday afternoons. STEM-pathy is a combination of STEM and empathy skills to create an innovative tool or device that can help someone. This offering is rooted in the practice of design thinking.

"Design thinking is an extension of innovation that allows you to design solutions for end users with a single problem statement in mind."

Harvard business school

Design thinking has always been a practice at Sapna, but this offering really brings the idea to life. This week, Mr. Nick asked kids to design and create a backpack for a homeless veteran. He took the Branches group on a journey into this man's life, learning about his past, preferences, and current needs. The kids immediately began to put themselves in this person's shoes and brainstorming ideas together.

One student in particular really took this project to heart and paid attention to detail. Blake knew the veteran loved sharks, so he put one on the front of the backpack. He included rope, a fishing pole, a small survival knife, and more. He plans to continue to work on it next week. It quickly turned into a two week project for the whole group. Updates coming next week!

This is the work and these are the skills we value more than anything at Sapna. Giving kids the opportunity to empathize and innovate. Mr. Nick creates this environment and these lessons to teach the whole child - head, hearts and hands. <3

Meet Mr. Nick

Nick Malone is starting his second year at Sapna and has over nine years of experience working with neurodiverse youth, providing social work and case management services. Nick also serves as an educational consultant, providing behavioral recommendations to school districts throughout North Florida. He is currently a Registered Behavior Therapist, specializing in social-emotional development and parent collaboration to produce socially significant outcomes for your child.