Innovative Programs Foster STEM Education

 

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“We don’t have a lot of homegrown scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians in the United States,” says Tirupalavanam Ganesh, assistant dean for information systems at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton College of Education. “In order to grow our own, we need to open up avenues for everyone to come into these fields.”

Ganesh, like many other ASU-based individuals engaged in promoting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, aims to address this shortage of STEM professionals by cultivating a new generation of students interested in STEM fields. His innovative program, called “Learning through Engineering Design and Practice: STEM for an Equitable Future,” targets minority and underprivileged youth traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields, and engages them in a year-round, hands-on curriculum that encourages students to think creatively about technology.

 

Funded by a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the innovative program has been implemented at two Mesa junior high schools where students have simulated desert tortoise behaviors with robots and learned about chain reactions with Rube Goldberg machines among many other highly interactive learning units.

 

“I wanted an engagement model,” Ganesh says of his hands-on program. “Rather than robotics for robotics sake, we used robotics to study something. It became a tool. I want our youth to redefine how we use technology, to think about how it can make our lives better, enrich our surroundings.”

 

During the course of the program, students will have the opportunity to work with the Global Institute of Sustainability to research and develop designs to mitigate the urban heat island, participate in “cognitive apprenticeships” with companies like Boeing, Intel, SRP, Motorola, and Microchip, and team up with the Mars Education Program to design autonomous rovers capable of navigating Mars-like terrain.

 

“We want children to understand the idea that when we make actions in our local settings, they actually have the potential to create global reactions,” Ganesh says. “We’re moving from the backyard to the city to outer space.”

 

Researchers are assessing the impact of the program in the hopes that the curriculum can be replicated on a much smaller budget for the Boys and Girls Club of the East Valley and the Arizona Science Center.

 

“We’re studying all of this throughout, as well,” Ganesh says, regarding the evaluative aspect of the program. “How can we actually create these learning experiences that are meaningful? What works, and why? We’re studying the work that we’re doing.”
In the meantime, students who complete the two-year junior high program have the option of coming back for a third year as a paid teaching assistant.

 

While this particular program only sees students to their freshman year of high school, numerous other ASU programs attempt to keep minority and underprivileged youth engaged in STEM fields through high school and beyond.

 

The Biodesign Institute, for example, recently implemented a high school internship program that allows high school science teachers and select students from low-income schools to work together on hands-on laboratory research. With mentors from the Biodesign Institute, these teachers also develop biodesign curricula for their specific schools.

 

“You can really capture the imagination of students and get their interests high,” says Richard Fisher, the director of education outreach for the Biodesign Institute, “But there’s a half-life to the excitement and motivation that students have after they experience one of these high impact encounters. So while the students are still engaged and motivated, it’s important for school systems to have other educational programs in place to keep the students interested in STEM careers.“

 

Another similar effort to maintain student engagement in STEM fields is the Math-Science Honors Program (MSHP), an intensive summer program that, for the last 23 years, has actively recruited underprivileged students from low-income communities across the state. Focusing on first-generation college-bound students, MSHP provides an opportunity for many students to take math and science classes not offered by their high schools, while providing them with numerous resources necessary for them to pursue higher education in STEM fields.

 

“Because our students are first-generation college students, college is a new experience for them,” says Cynthia Romero, co-coordinator of MSHP. “If you’re from a school with 3,000 students and one guidance counselor, you might not get the guidance you need to get into college. Sometimes we’re the only outside resource for them.”

 

The program also strives to help students address socio-economic barriers to higher education. 

 

“A lot of students who get fellowships are also helping to support their families,” says Carlos Castillo-Chavez, executive director of the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute. “There are many socio-economic factors that affect these students. The challenge is getting them to commit to studies under those circumstances. Without this program they wouldn’t go to college, they wouldn’t get those scholarships to MIT.”

 

These three approaches to STEM education, while diverse, are integral to increasing the pipeline of STEM professionals in the United States.

 

“We need many efforts at many levels if we’re really going to have a new generation of scientists, technologists, mathematicians and engineers,” Ganesh says. “We are providing opportunities for these children that they didn’t even know existed.”

 

Catherine Traywick, ASU in the Community feature writer
catherine.traywick@asu.edu
(480) 965-0335