Earlier this year, Newton Public Schools announced a three-year partnership with Boston University’s School of Engineering to bring BU engineering undergraduates into Newton classrooms as Inspiration Ambassadors, to engage and mentor middle-school and high-school students. The undergraduates are professionally trained for these roles to guide hands-on design challenges and host interactive presentations. The College of Engineering will also work with Newton’s teachers in workshops and professional development opportunities. The BU Technology Inspiration Scholars Program has worked with over 2,200 students in twelve states.
Category Archives: Great ideas
Engaging 6th Graders in STEM at Oak Hill
Norma Sullivan, 6th grade math/science teacher at Oak Hill MS, believes kids need to get the STEM bug by the end of middle school — ideally by the end of 6th grade. She’s doing her part. Besides her LIFT2 professional learning program and summer internship and her classes’ early participation in the DIGITS program, she is engaging her students to explore STEM careers with these ideas: Continue reading Engaging 6th Graders in STEM at Oak Hill
Bigelow Middle School Holds Final Bionic Arm Competition
Bigelow MS’s year-end competition to design and build a remote-controlled Bionic Arm shows one facet of how STEM is being taught in Newton’s middle schools. Students were challenged to design and build a prosthetic arm that would lift and place an object. Each arm is entirely remote-controlled by 4 hydraulic pistons – one to control each axis to make the arm lift, reach, grab, and rotate. In the year-end challenge, 4 teams of 4 students in each class competed in a tournament to “shoot hoops” with the robotic arms they created.
Continue reading Bigelow Middle School Holds Final Bionic Arm Competition
Robotics is Under Way at Oak Hill Middle School!
This spring, Oak Hill MS formed a new after-school Robotics Club, the MegaOHMS. About 20 students from all three grades joined together each Monday afternoon to plan, design, build, and program Lego robots to tackle the season’s challenge —navigating the tricky “Oak Hill Harbor”, avoiding many obstacles while deploying buoys and positioning life boats. 
Continue reading Robotics is Under Way at Oak Hill Middle School!
Khan Academy: Free, Online STEM Education Videos
Salman Khan has created a growing library of over 2000 engaging educational videos — all free on YouTube — in arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, statistics, calculus, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, history, finance, economics. See www.khanacademy.org for the entire library, including 9-minute video overview of all of it.
Sal’s recent 20-minute TED talk (video) explains how he aims to revolutionize and invert education (i.e., lectures will be at home via video, and what was once homework will be done in school), with each student progressing at his/her own pace and teachers coaching individuals and small groups. Continue reading Khan Academy: Free, Online STEM Education Videos
DIGITS Launches in All Four Newton Middle Schools
Newton has become the latest site for DIGITS, a statewide program offered free to middle schools to increase 6th graders’ interest in STEM and knowledge of STEM-related careers. DIGITS pairs volunteer STEM Ambassadors — professionals in STEM-related fields who are trained in the DIGITS program — with classrooms to inspire and motivate students and explain the importance of math and science in their careers. Continue reading DIGITS Launches in All Four Newton Middle Schools
MA STEM Operations Board: “@Scale” Endorsement of STEM Projects — Application Deadline May 17
The Governor’s STEM Advisory Council’s Operations Board announced today the @Scale Initiative to endorse current STEM projects that:
- Address specific performance gaps in the goals of the Massachusetts Statewide STEM Plan (PDF) and
- Have the potential to scale up for statewide implementation.
Projects that receive @Scale Endorsements will be listed on the STEM Pipeline website so that potential funding partners may seek more detailed information and solicit proposals from project leaders for specific scale-up initiatives. Project leaders will then directly engage funding and implementation partners to establish coalitions for implementation. Continue reading MA STEM Operations Board: “@Scale” Endorsement of STEM Projects — Application Deadline May 17
Science Club for Girls
Science Club for Girls (SCFG) is a nonprofit organization focusing on girls-specific programming in underserved communities. It provides free, hands-on science and engineering programs to over 1,000 girls in five cities in eastern Massachusetts (Cambridge, Lawrence, Boston, Newton and Fitchburg), and in Pokuase, Ghana. The Newton chapter was founded in 2004 and meets in the Myrtle Street Baptist Church on Saturday afternoons in October, November, February, and March. In addition, it holds Leadership Forums, Winter Science Parties, and Museum Overnights.
- All girls grades K-7 are invited to join, and girls in grades 7-8 and high school serve as Junior Mentors. Mentor-scientists model and foster leadership, affirm college as an expectation, and promote careers in science and technology as goals and options.
- STEM professionals, graduate students, and undergraduate students interested in becoming a mentor-scientist can send an email to volunteer@scienceclubforgirls.org.
- Donations to support the program are gratefully appreciated.
Cabot’s After-School Math Puzzle Club
Will Brockman is a software engineer at Google Cambridge, a math Ph.D., and a parent of two boys at Cabot Elementary School in Newtonville. With three other parents, he leads an after-school “math puzzle club” for 4th and 5th graders, where kids do math contest puzzles for practice and in contest settings. This year, the kids have taken the 5 Elementary Math Olympiad contests and the Math League contest. Here’s how it works… Continue reading Cabot’s After-School Math Puzzle Club
Bringing STEM Professionals into the Classroom
Sarah Nitsche and Norma Sullivan are NPS middle-school math/science teachers involved in LIFT2 (Leadership Initiatives for Teaching and Technology), a professional learning program that brings teachers into STEM organizations for summer internships and provides additional training during the year. (Sarah wrote about last summer’s internship here.)
Inspired by LIFT2, both Norma (who has completed the program) and Sarah (currently enrolled) have been bringing STEM professionals into their classrooms to raise awareness and pique interest around STEM-related fields. Here’s what they have to say: Continue reading Bringing STEM Professionals into the Classroom