Phoenix STEM students get new learning lab

PHOENIX (FOX 10) - A state-of-the-art lab, the first of its kind in Arizona, and also the third in the nation -- its opening day for the new innovative learning lab at Morris K. Udall Middle School.

Granted to the school by Verizon's STEM program, it's only the third of its kind in the nation and the very first in the state of Arizona.

Now, students will be putting together then taking apart their own tablets, designing video games, coding, making apps and even learning how to program Amazon's Alexa.

"A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Eric Thompson said. "The kids are going to get skills for jobs that we don't even know what jobs there's going to be 20 years from now and they're going to have these cutting edge skills for jobs in the future."

The school says the STEM lab will give students and teachers free access to hands-on high-tech learning experiences, setting them up for the future of the world's job market.

Like Jesus, who hopes to be a security engineer one day.

"It will help me a lot because this will teach me how to code and know how to use technology at a really young age," he said. "You need a lot of coding to stop hackers."

Or Alexandra who, when she grows up, aspires to be a video-game designer.

"Well, this is going to help me to learn to code and it has many other activities that can help me with my future job," she said.