SNOW HILL — A number of the programs offered at the Worcester Technical High School (WTHS) STEM WOW Academy are seeing some evolution this year.
Worcester County Public Schools (WCPS) are also working to extend the availability of different programs to new age groups with the intent of nurturing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) interest from early in students’ academic lives.
Beginning June 23, the STEM WOW Academy will feature programs on things like Alternative Energy, Interactive Media Production (IMP), Biomedical Science and Pre-Engineering. While energy and media production classes will follow much the same format as last year, some of the other programs have been tweaked to give students new learning options.
“The Biomedical is going to take more of a forensics turn this summer,” said Marlyn Barrett, Coordinator of Science for WCPS. “So we’ll work on it from that angle … The Pre-Engineering is going to have more of an aeronautics twist to it.”
STEM WOW will be dropping one program from last year, Curriculum for Agriculture Science Education (CASE), due to a scheduling conflict with the instructor. However, Barrett hopes to see the program return next year along with some other expanded activities. The academy is offered to rising eighth graders, but Barrett would like to see that criteria opened up so that students could try the program for two years.
The goal of STEM WOW is to give students a chance to experience some STEM education so they can make an informed decision on whether they want to pursue the field in high school. It currently runs for one week, but in addition to opening the doors for new grade levels, increasing the runtime of the academy is high on WCPS’ list of priorities.
“We really would like to be able to extend the program for the upcoming ninth graders so they can see a little bit more about the other activities that are being offered at the technical high school,” Barrett said. “The students last year, when we asked them what they’d like to see done differently, they wanted to see it extend to a two-week program instead of a one-week program.”
The strategy of including more students in STEM education extends beyond returning participants from last year. While not part of the same STEM WOW Academy, there will be programs for seventh grade students at WTHS. The classes will be similar to what eighth graders will encounter, which is one reason why the academy is altering its Biomedical and Pre-Engineering.
“The school is actually adding two programs,” said Barrett. “For the upcoming seventh graders, they’re adding bio-engineering and medical.”
At this point, 51 students have signed up for the STEM WOW Academy with another 25 rising seventh graders slated to take part in the new WTHS courses. Last year, 53 students participated in STEM WOW.
STEM-style programs will also be held at the elementary level in the county. Younger students will be introduced to some early level alternative energy concepts in summer school.
“They’re doing windmills. And so they’re going to be doing activities on wind energy and why it’s important, both the positive and negative areas around it, how it affects the wildlife, how it affects wind patterns, those types of things. That’s starting on June 23 and going for four weeks,” Barrett said.
As programs continue to grow, Barrett confirmed that the school system is aggressively hunting grant funding that could be used to add new courses and involve more students. The usual grant has been $60,000 in the past but is only offering $50,000 this year and WCPS won’t have a complete grasp on their grant situation until late summer.