LANDIS — Landis Elementary School has a new technology lab, courtesy of an intrepid group of students.

It started, as most things do, with a problem. Last year, Amy Collins’ fifth-grade AIG class was forced to change rooms because of floor work on the fifth-grade hall. The students ended up in the school’s old technology lab and quickly started noticing problems. The equipment was out of date, the floor was “crunchy,” and the walls needed to be repainted.

“Can’t we do something about this room?” the students asked.

So they did. With the help of school technology facilitator Kelly Crews, Collins designed a problem-based learning activity that challenged the class to redesign the lab.

Usually, Collins said, students connect what they’re learning in class to careers, college and the like.

“For our kids, what that means to them is what they’re going to do in the future. … But their world is right now,” she said.

The activity was a chance to make an immediate difference.

Over the next several months, students designed a space, learned how to build scale models, then built them and researched technology. As the students grew more and more excited about the possibility and more invested in the idea, Collins and Crews thought it was time to make it a reality.

But it was the kids who saw it through. The class applied for two grants: one from Rowan Partners for Education, and one from Lowe’s. With funding in hand, it was time to make their dream a reality.

The new “Sky High Tech Lab” looks nothing like the old lab. The floor is shiny and clean, and the walls are painted bright blue. Stations are set up allowing students to tinker with coding, robots or 3-D printing.

The students chose everything, from the comfortable wobble chairs to the make and model of the shiny red 3-D printer. Crews said the space gives students a place to create, and she said she hopes the technology and the room will continue to evolve with the needs of students.

“It’s the future of technology,” student Ava Schleyer said of the lab.

Schleyer and her classmates are now sixth-graders at Corriher-Lipe Middle School, but the group went back to Landis Elementary on Sept. 7 for the lab’s grand opening. Even though they won’t get to use the lab they built, students said they’re still proud of what they’ve accomplished.

“We worked a lot last year to get this. … It’s really great to see this real,” student Tyler Williams said.

Tyler said he and several others in the class have younger siblings at Landis Elementary and are happy the lab will be there for them.

Principal Brooke Zehmer called the lab’s opening “an exciting day for Landis” and said it wouldn’t have been possible without cooperation among students, teachers, district personnel, businesses and community partners. That cooperation, she said, is what can make education truly great.

“It really takes everybody,” she said.

Contact reporter Rebecca Rider at 704-797-4264.