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Children have been out of school for almost a year, but that doesn't mean they haven't been learning. At Belize High School, the management is engaging the students in a practical way with a project that takes their STEAM subjects out of their textbooks and into real life.

The Solar Tree Project was inspired by a 2019 trip to Singapore. The students saw that the country had taken necessary steam vents and turned them into a functional and decorative tourist attraction by adding plants and various vine-like structures.

The students returned to Belize with ideas buzzing in their heads, and their principal, Jamie Usher, saw these ideas to fruition with the project, which includes a workable weather station. She explained how the components of STEAM were incorporated.

Jamie Usher, Principal, BHS
"The weather station along with the plants that will be added later on is the science component. Technology is involved because we actually have the weather station hooked up to the internet so our families can tap in on a site and get BHS weather live. The engineering component is obviously all of the structural efforts that went into this, everything from the cement base that's three feet down under the tree, up to the tubing, to the metal branches that were specially designed and made for us by Medina Materials. We have the art component where this PVC structure that you see is trying to shape this trunk like factor in our metal frame. And finally we have our math elements where every step of the way math was involved down to the angles and everything of the leaves."

The tree will see the solar panels attached to the metallic leaves as well as flowers planted by students at the base. But while the project isn't complete yet, the weather station is up and running.

Jamie Usher, Principal, BHS
"We have a link live but what you can do, ambient weather, you can just plug in Belize High School weather and it will come up on that data service and you can come in and it has a dashboard and it has everything from rainfall to wind speed and direction, moon phase, everything is there, so we will be working with the hydro meteorological department tog et that link to the Hydro MET office."

An important part of this project coming to life was the trips the students took to Asian countries that are technologically advanced. One Taiwanese mom helps to coordinate these trips, and is delighted that the children are practicing what they've seen.

Shu-Chen Wang, Parent
"First time we went to Taiwan, because I'm from Taiwan so I want the students - to introduce the students to Taiwan because I want the students to open their mind and from Taiwan to learn."

"The next one, 2018, we went to Taiwan again but it's different place. And 2019 we went to Singapore. So when we came back we were building this. Everybody was very happy to see, in Singapore we enjoy to see that tree so we have to say we miss that tree so we thought of making a small one in Belize."

Usher is hoping other schools and students will be inspired to create projects of their own to ensure that students are still learning outside the classrooms.

Jamie Usher, Principal, BHS
"I think across this COVID pandemic, I think equity has been something that everyone has been equally caught up in and equally frustrated with because it's really about getting to everyone so this might be one action by our community but we're hoping it will create some kind of ripple effect in terms of understanding how we can bundle and sharing how we can get a lot of learning done all in one project."

Once completed, the Solar Tree will power a virtual bulletin board which will have messages and reminders for students at parents at the front of the school. At night, it will be used for the security guards to keep an eye on the rest of the school.