Located in South Georgia off I-75 at the northern end of Lowndes County, Pine Grove Middle School is situated on 217 acres of pine trees, featuring three ponds and Withlacoochee River frontage. The community surrounding PGM is made up of agribusinesses, Langdale Forest Products and Farmer’s Catch, a paper mill, and Valdosta State University. As the first middle school STEM program certified in South Georgia for 2017-2022, we proudly display our banner and welcome anyone to see STEM in action at PGM.
Visit our campus, and you will see students in unconventional locations. Rather than sitting in rows listening to a teacher, students can be found in the STEM Lab, the Commons, the outdoor classroom, the media center, the food forest, the hydroponics/ aquaponics lab, the greenhouses, the bee hives, or in the hallways. Teachers and students are empowered with the creative flexibility to design STEM units which address a local problem and incorporate the Georgia Standards of Excellence. PGM students who belong to the STEM advanced or interest based cohorts are challenged to investigate, create, test, redesign, and improve while taking risks throughout their STEM units and Project-Based Learning opportunities. The goal is to make these student learners able to think critically and creatively, communicate information verbally or digitally, and collaborate with their peers and others.
Picture math, science, and computer science teachers along with Moody Air Force base’s weather team working collaboratively on a weather unit where STEM students plot paths of tornadoes, code robots to track the weather systems, and collect data to forecast future weather systems using our WeatherSTEM unit positioned on the school building.