SOUTH PORTLAND — When Amber Ahmady entered the eighth grade this
year at South Portland’s Memorial Middle School, she had her sights set on
becoming a surgeon. But after a few class hours spent with a soldering iron and
a drill, she’s considering a different career choice.
“I really think I’m going to be an engineer,”
she said on Thursday, while putting the finishing touches on a SeaPearch
submarine unit in her STEM inquiry and design class. “I’ve discovered that I
really like building things.”
STEM – an acronym for science, technology,
engineering and math – is both a renewed focus on 21st century job
skills and a project-based system of study that stresses learning through
doing. Using a three-year, $150,000 grant from Texas Instruments, South
Portland has this year launched a series of classes in which middle-school
students are putting their skills to the test to solve various engineering
problems.
In the sixth grade, students are working to
build a better lobster trap. In Ahmady’s class, the project is to build an
underwater robot using kits created by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology with sponsorship from the Office of Naval Research, the educational
arm of the U.S. Navy.
All of the students will be demonstrating their
projects during “From Store to Shore,” a special event planned for April 14-22
at the Maine Mall (see sidebar). Shoppers will get a first-hand look at how the
class uses real-life applications to show students the value of science
education.
“It’s aimed at being an all-in-one teaching tool
for pre-engineering,” explained Wendy West, a program coordinator at the
Compass Project in Portland. While Compass has worked the past two years to
build sail boats with South Portland alternative education students, West has
spent every school day this semester working with students at the city’s two
middle schools on the SeaPerch program. She leads them through the mathematics
of design and construction, the physics of buoyancy and the engineering needed
to build waterproof electric motors.
“Basically, it’s a submarine,” West said, while
holding one of the very un-submarine looking PVC-tube frames students will
eventually pilot through an underwater obstacle course. “Everything in it is
designed to support STEM programming.”
“The SeaPerch submarine challenge is very
hands-on,” said Chris Hughes, a longtime South Portland science teacher who
took on the STEM pilot class this year. “In the traditional classroom, students
are almost taught to fear failure, but here it’s OK. As much as anything else,
the students are learning the scientific method, working through the process of
taking a problem and finding a solution.
“In a regular science class, kids go into the
lab with a foregone conclusion of what they’re supposed to get and, if they
don’t get it, it’s like, sorry, we’d don’t have time to do it again but here’s
what you should have seen,” Hughes said. “But here, we allow the kids to do it
and to fail at it, and then learn from that and improve their ideas and
designs. It’s all about critical thinking, which is why, with a lot of our
projects, there’s no right answer.”
For students like Aaron Radziacz, part of the
fun is getting to use power tools in class.
“To do this, we’ve been using a lot of things
like drills and vices, soldering irons,” he said, pointing to the mounting
holes where his engine will eventually go. “It’s nice that we don’t have to sit
in a chair and watch somebody do it. We can actually be first-hand and learn to
do it for ourselves.”
According to Superintendent Suzanne Godin,
building an interest in building goes far beyond the classroom. It’s a matter
of dire national importance. Only about 5 percent of all high school graduates
in the U.S. are bound for careers in engineering. In China, the number is
closer to 50 percent.
“Economic development in Maine depends upon having
STEM-literate workers,” Godin said. “Today's middle school students, a decade
from now, will find that 1 in 7 new Maine jobs will involve STEM disciplines,
and these jobs will produce wages that are 58 percent higher than wages for
other jobs.”
Ahmady isn’t too concerned with that at this
stage in her career. All she knows is the satisfaction she felt the first time
she picked up a soldering iron.
“This is way better than social studies, which
is about the most boring class in the whole world,” she said. “Right now where
doing American history and, I know that’s important, but instead of being told
what other people did, in here we’re doing things for ourselves.”
And while conventional wisdom may claim that
boys benefit most from active learning, Ahmady said she does better in the
project-based program.
“I can remember things we did in here at the
beginning of the year,” she said. “But, to be honest, in social studies, I
can’t even really remember what we did two weeks ago.”
Godin said the
classes have proven popular enough that there’s actually been measurable impact
on attendance. The Texas Instruments grant will be used to train even more
teachers in the process for next year, with planning beginning now on future
efforts.
“We absolutely
believe STEM programming and project-based learning will continue after the TI
grant, because it's necessary to support student achievement and to support the
futures our students will have before them,” she said. “Students must be
engaged in their learning and it is critical to provide real
world learning opportunities that encourage students to explore
STEM-related fields and careers.”
While Texas Instruments money helped pay for the
teacher training and curriculum preparation, the MIT SeaPerch kits were
purchases using a $1,000 donation from the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Rotary
Club.
The community involvement will continue next
week, West said, when students give their machines a public demonstration
during the first “From Store to Shore” event at the Maine Mall.
During a week-long ecology event leading into
Earth Day, students will demonstrate their work for the public, piloting their
submarines in large tanks and explaining their work Monday through Saturday at
10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.
“Studies show that one way to really cement
learning is to teach it,” Hughes said.
Are the students nervous about explaining their
project work to the public, or that their submarines might fail to perform as
expected? Not really, said Radziacz. After all, the main job of a submarine is
to go under water.
“I’m pretty sure mine will sink,” he jokes.
‘Store
to Shore’ at the Maine Mall
South
Portland middle-school students will show off their projects, including the
aquatic robots, as well as redesigned fishing nets and special lobster traps,
during a special nine-day event at the Maine Mall.
“From
Store to Shore,” April 14-22, is a celebration of Earth Month and a kickoff to
summer shopping. There will be a full menu of activities for shoppers,
including indoor sailing exhibits, aquarium touch tanks, aquatic robot
demonstrations and a fashion show.
The
fields of boating, fishing and lobstering will be celebrated through nautical
décor from local marine stores as well as community groups that engage in these
fields. Sail Maine volunteers will demonstrate rigging and sail basics on boats
in Garden Court while in Center Court.
The
ecology of the ocean will also be a common theme throughout the week. For
shoppers willing to get their hands wet, there will be a tidal pool touch tank
outside of Macy’s staffed by marine biologists. The Maine Strandings Collaborative
will be running a seal-naming contest to raise awareness and funding for
rescues. The creator of the winning name will get to visit the seal at
University of New England’s Marine Rehabilitation Center and will also get to
attend the seal’s release into the wild. Shoppers can even have their entries
read on-air during a live broadcast from the mall during the event’s opening
day, April 14, noon-2 p.m.
Additionally,
the Wells Reserve, Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, LymeBuddies, and Cumberland
County Soil and Water District will be sharing information about the various
steps every shopper can take to protect themselves and our local ecology. On
April 22, Earth Day, shoppers who show a receipt will receive a seedling to
plant from The Maine Mall as well as a map of suggested places to plant,
primarily tree-hungry spots along South Portland Land Trust trails that
encircle the mall.
Ending
the week on a stylish note, on April 21 there will be an outdoor, tented
fashion show called The Nautical Runway with live music and a beer garden from
4-6 p.m.
A
full schedule of events is available at www.mainemall.com/events.
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