By SARA LAWSON
Assistant News Editor

(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) — UCM Lee’s Summit is an official LEGO Education Academy training site. The university will now play a part in helping teachers incorporate LEGO bricks into K-12 education in the Midwest.

“It allows UCM the opportunity to target educators in our designated territories with the latest and greatest LEGO resources for the development of their students and the educators’ own professional development,” said Joseph Mullins, a consultant for workforce and professional development at UCM.

Mullins said he negotiated the agreement and is responsible for managing the partnership between LEGO and UCM which was finalized in the fall of 2015.

In recent years, UCM has offered LEGO Education Summer Camps and began negotiations with LEGO about how to expand their existing relationship. LEGO Education offered to designate UCM an Academy Training Site, making it the only university in the Midwest to be named so.

The UCM LEGO Education Center Area will cover much of western Missouri and eastern Kansas.

Stephanie Forbes, an account manager for LEGO Education, said UCM was chosen to be a training site because it has a great reputation for quality and teaching professional development, and the university’s innovation and values are very much in line with LEGO’s.

Teachers will learn how to incorporate LEGO kits into their curriculum through workshops and meetings. The LEGO kits provided to the teachers will be customized based on the program or field of study. For example, kits based in robotics will have gears and cranes.

Though the LEGO Education Academy Training Site is primarily for kindergarten, elementary and high school teachers, UCM students might be seeing the plastic bricks a bit more often.

“In our initial LEGO training this fall (2015), we had faculty representatives from several academic departments,” said Laurel Hogue, vice provost for extended studies. “The training focused on how to incorporate the use of LEGO bricks into curriculum so students may see faculty utilizing LEGO kits in the near future.”

Although UCM will not be getting free LEGO bricks, they will be able to purchase the LEGO training kits at a discounted rate.