Primrose Student Teacher Finds Success at STEAM Competition

There’s a rising educator at Primrose who’s finding her place in STEAM.

Emily Guerra is a 1:1 aide and a student teacher in Mrs. Paperman’s second-grade class. She will graduate from Mercy University this year with her master’s degree in early childhood special education.

“A dream of mine has been to work in a special education classroom,” said Guerra. “It would be my ideal placement.”

When she’s not in the classroom, Guerra is already finding new ways to further her education and push her career to new heights. When she learned from a family friend about the Beyond School Hours 2025 Conference 50-State STEAM Challenge, she knew she had just the lesson to send.

“I decided to submit my lesson plan because I felt it was a great way to proudly represent New York State in the world of education,” said Guerra.

Beyond School Hours hosts an annual conference to gather educators together for professional development and community. This year’s theme was Education Amplified, designed to highlight the “voices and ideas that shape the landscape of education—both during and beyond school hours.” The 50-State STEAM Challenge invited K-12 educators and programs to submit their best STEAM lesson plans. Fifty plans were showcased at the conference on February 13-16 in Orlando, Florida, but only the top five were demonstrated by teachers at the conference. Emily Guerra’s lesson was one of those five plans chosen for demonstration.

Guerra’s lesson plan was created for the second-grade curriculum, New York State Standards. The lesson is designed to take place over four days, with each session lasting for approximately 45 minutes. She wanted to find a way to help students connect with their community by creating birdhouses from found art. Found art is created by using everyday objects that are not traditional art materials.

“I took the idea of building a birdhouse with found art and turned it into a more traditional STEAM project,” said Guerra. “All aspects of the STEAM lesson plan are equally important; however, I find the engineering aspect of it most interesting because this is the part where the lesson really comes together.”

During their work through the STEAM birdhouses lesson, the students must identify the needs of local birds and consider how a birdhouse can support them. They must design a birdhouse using sketches and labeled diagrams before moving on to measurements and basic engineering principles to build the birdhouse. Even the way they decorate the birdhouse is deliberate, taking the environment and its aesthetic appeal into consideration. The final step is for students to reflect on the process and share their designs with their peers.

“I truly wasn’t expecting to be chosen as one of the top five lesson plans out of the 50 submitted, but I was overwhelmed with the result!” said Guerra.

Being in her final stretch of college and surrounded by supportive family, friends, and Primrose colleagues, Guerra knows she is on the right path for her future as a teacher. Being chosen to have her STEAM lesson demonstrated at the Beyond School Hours 2025 Conference further proves that point.

“I owe a huge thank you to Jessica Paperman who has taught me so much already during my time here at Primrose,” said Guerra. “I look forward to learning much more from her that I will take with me into my own classroom one day!”