Maple Crest Middle School
Maple Crest Middle School is part of the Kokomo School Corporation, located in Kokomo, Indiana. The school serves approximately 419 students in grades 6 through 8, providing a supportive and engaging middle-level education. Maple Crest Middle School is committed to developing responsible, confident learners through rigorous academics, meaningful relationships, and opportunities for personal growth.
What STEM means at Maple Crest Middle School
At Maple Crest Middle School, we envision a future where every learner is immersed in STEM-centered classrooms that spark curiosity, creativity, and confidence. Our mission is to provide hands-on, inquiry-driven experiences that connect directly to the world around students—from robotics and sustainable energy projects to engineering and advanced manufacturing pathways that reflect Kokomo’s electric vehicle and high-tech resurgence.
We are committed to equipping students with durable skills in communication, collaboration, and work ethic, preparing them to thrive in high school and beyond. Through project-based learning, public showcases, and industry mentorships, our students will master academic content while becoming adaptable leaders aligned to Indiana’s Enrollment, Employment, and Enlistment pathways, with early connections to Kokomo High School’s STEM Academy and career-focused opportunities.
Maple Crest will serve as a hub of community-connected learning, leveraging partnerships with local industries, higher education, and civic organizations. Our classrooms will bridge student passions with Kokomo’s growing workforce needs, ensuring graduates are ready to step into high-wage, high-demand careers while remaining rooted in creativity, innovation, and service.
Above all, we see Maple Crest as more than a school of choice. It will be recognized as the premier pathway to future success in Kokomo. Here, students will be known, challenged, and supported as confident, resilient, and well-rounded individuals who grow into inventors, problem solvers, and lifelong learners.
Maple Crest STEM Middle School: “Where everyone and every moment matters.”
What makes our STEM program stand out
STEM Implementation K-12-to-Career
STEM is a pillar to the WD approach to education and preparing students as functioning members of the community by being exposed to the increasingly technology driven world. Between the three STEM labs, every student is exposed to the career opportunities available with STEM.
STEM Promotion
STEM Day and other events throughout the year expose students on what is to come as
their educational journey in the building continues. Elementary students are exposed to
opportunities at the high school, and high school students are exposed to industry
employers looking for talent or mentorship opportunities.
Diversified Options for all Secondary Ed Students, College and Workforce Bound
WD hosts several different NLPS pathways that allow students to explore their interests in
engineering, digital media, cybersecurity, information technology, business operations, and more. There is not another school of this size offering such a vast array of career exploration
opportunities.
Schoolwide STEM Week with Real-World Challenges
Each year, Maple Crest Middle School hosts a schoolwide STEM Week where every student engages in meaningful, hands-on problem solving connected to real-world contexts. Across grade levels, students explore authentic challenges that require research, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. For example, 6th grade students develop and pitch original product ideas in a Shark Tank-style innovation challenge, presenting their prototypes to local business and industry partners. Meanwhile, 7th grade students connect literacy and STEM through a water filtration project, inspired by their reading of A Long Walk to Water. After learning about global water scarcity and filtration methods, students design and test their filtration systems and even evaluate their effectiveness using water from Wildkat Creek at Highland Park.
STEM Week highlights the power of authentic learning, community partnership, and student innovation—creating engaging experiences where students see how STEM can impact the world around them.
8th Grade MCTV Broadcast & Media Production
STEM Day and other events throughout the year expose students on what is to come as their educational journey in the building continues. Elementary students are exposed toopportunities at the high school, and high school students are exposed to industry employers looking for talent or mentorship opportunities.
STEM & Robotics Courses
At Maple Crest, every student engages in authentic, hands-on STEM learning every day through our STEM & Robotics courses. Students learn to research, design, build, test, and improve as they engineer solutions to real-world challenges. In STEM courses, students explore scientific and engineering concepts through inquiry-based projects—whether comparing accuracy and precision, building catapults, analyzing water flow to model the circulatory system, constructing marble runs, or designing greenhouse systems that connect science, engineering, and the arts.
In Robotics, students take their problem-solving even further as they design, model, and build functional mechanisms and robotic systems using professional tools and platforms. Projects often extend beyond the classroom and into the community—such as engineering adaptations to support accessibility and improve everyday experiences for others.
Together, the STEM and Robotics programs help students develop collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and perseverance. These experiences empower students to see themselves as engineers, innovators, and solution designers—now and in the future.
Our Current STEM Focus
Our mission is to help schools define, grow, and share powerful STEM programs that align with local needs while meeting global standards. Indiana STEM exists to remove the roadblocks to certification and provide schools with a strategic partner committed to lasting, student-centered growth.
