{"id":36640,"date":"2025-07-31T18:13:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T22:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36640"},"modified":"2025-07-31T18:13:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T22:13:18","slug":"area-teacher-named-volunteer-of-the-year-in-first-lego-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/area-teacher-named-volunteer-of-the-year-in-first-lego-league\/","title":{"rendered":"Area teacher named Volunteer of the Year in FIRST Lego League"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sarah Demarco, an area Grade 3 teacher, was recently named FIRST LEGO League Explore\u2019s Volunteer of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demarco, who teaches at Newmarket independent school Pickering College (PC), was honoured by FIRST Robotics Canada for her efforts to foster robotics programs within the PC community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) lead at Pickering College, she has played an important role in inspiring young students to think creatively, work collaboratively, and tackle the fundamentals of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in creative ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was recognized in particular for her \u201ccontinued dedication to program implementation\u201d and the significant impact she has made within the FIRST community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demarco was also honoured for spearheading the school\u2019s FIRST LEGO League Explore Festival, which brought seven teams together to showcase their robots \u2013 and their own learnings along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am really honoured,\u201d Demarco told The Auroran last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demarco began bringing the FIRST LEGO League Explore program to her students back in 2014, and recently started to do so again after a brief hiatus due to the global pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was first inspired to lead the program within the school after being approached by a parent. She initially tried it out as an after-school club, but soon had a much bigger vision as she saw the value of the program demonstrated time and time again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought the kids could even do it in class as part of our academic program [and] the following year we implemented it into the program, myself and our now retired Grade 1 teacher. The kids just love it; they love the LEGO component, but they also love the robotics. There is always a challenge to follow, but there\u2019s a lot of independent creativity for them in how they take on the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Demarco has seen students excel through the program across the board, particularly gravitating towards coding. For the primary grades in which Demarco teaches, work predominantly focuses on block coding and, as students familiarize themselves with the process, she has seen them begin to teach each other the ropes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the students, it\u2019s the critical thinking and them taking the lead and giving them that ownership over that learning,\u201d she says. \u201cThen it\u2019s their curiosity because with every challenge  \u2013 the past challenge was \u2018Submerged,\u2019 which was an ocean theme, and next year\u2019s challenge is called \u2018Unearthed,\u2019 which is an archeology theme \u2013 they\u2019re learning so much, delving deeper into these topics. It\u2019s neat as their teacher to see them take it beyond what I would imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had a student this year who does not like to write, but he was so invested in this topic and spent a full period just researching and writing. It showed me, \u2018Well, I know what I can do to get him to write!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing this program and its initiatives to younger students within the PC environment has the added bonus for Demarco of seeing how what students learned in Grade 3 is carried with them through to the end of high school as they build upon these early fundamentals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, within PC\u2019s 2025 Graduating Class, nearly 50 per cent of students were headed to STEM-related post-secondary programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are so proud of Sarah for receiving this well-deserved recognition from FIRST Robotics Canada. Her passion, creativity and commitment to student learning embody the values we hold dear at Pickering College,\u201d says Dr. Cinde Lock, Head of School. \u201cThrough her leadership of the FLL Explore program, Sarah has not only inspired students to think critically and collaborate but has also built a strong, supportive community that celebrates curiosity and innovation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demarco is expected to be formally presented with the honour during the upcoming program season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Demarco, an area Grade 3 teacher, was recently named FIRST LEGO League Explore\u2019s Volunteer of the Year. Demarco, who teaches at Newmarket independent school Pickering College (PC), was honoured by FIRST Robotics Canada for her efforts to foster robotics programs within the PC community. As the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) lead at Pickering College, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2025-07-31-08.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9wY","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-23 10:57:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36641,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36640\/revisions\/36641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}