Sept. 2010-Girls were excited to learn about the STEM related projects that they will be doing this year.
Oct. 2010 6th grade girls started to meet and talk about how they would like to promote STEM careers at school. Met with Futures of Maine to go over their role in this project. One of the major focuses that Futures of Maine will be helping with is to help increase awareness of colleges and also to promote and encourage kids to be involved in reaching for higher education.
November 2010- Attended the Maine Girls Collaborative Project Conference at UMO. Was a great way to network with others. If anyone is interested they do one of these each year for free and if you really want to make a difference in the life of girls this is one event you don’t want to miss.
Girls helped to set aside part of a school board that will be used to highlight Future of Maine newsletters as a way to increase knowledge of college. These are sent out monthly so each month they will change this and put a new one up.
Dec. 2010 Gave over website to the girls for them to start adding things and working on website. Also continue to have lunch groups where they learn about STEM careers. The girls started to research sites to look for activities related to STEM careers that they can use during our STEM event.
Jan. 2011 Girls were able to see how technology can make a difference by using the Tanberg system to help the 6th and 3rd grade classes go on a virtual field trip. In this trip they learned about nature and insects. The girls started to really look at technology in a whole new way and are trying to come up with some ideas of how they can use technology in a school wide event.
Feb. 2011 The girls in the lunch group and the direction of the administration at Brownville Elementary decided to help the school and community out by having a 3-6th grade event where the whole school came together before Feb. vacation for 1 hour and used laptops to give food through the free rice site. At this site people can answer questions to earn rice that is donated to different countries. A great way to see how someone has turned technology into a valuable tool. If you are interested in using the site it is located at: http://www.freerice.com/
Feb. 2011 The girls again were able to help set up the Tandberg and this time collaborate with the 3rd and 6th grade teacher as they offered another virtual field trip. This one had to do with space. The experience of being able to connect with others all over the country via Tanberg this year has been an eye opener for many of the students in how important technology is. Also by collaborating and these girls getting the chance to set up the system and see how to use it has allowed them to overcome some of the “fear” of technology that often happens to people around technology.
March 2011- The 8th grade girls in the district attend Expand Your Horizons at UMO. This event was a huge success and the girls were very thankful that the grant allowed them to attend this. Due to budget cuts trips like this often are not available in our district and yet are so valuable. The girls not only got to experience what it was like on a college campus but also explore some great science careers while they were at this event. Already the 8th grade teachers were talking about seeing if they can locate some grant funds for future years based on how valuable of a day it was.
March 2011- 24 students in our district worked with Futures of Maine ( collaborative partner) to compete in the College Bowl. This is an event that was held at Husson College so not only did the students get to explore a college campus but they learned many facts about higher education as they studied and competed in the competition. Many questions were related to STEM facts and at the event the admission officer came and spoke to the students about the various degrees including those that are in STEM careers.
March 2011- Bob Stuart from Futures of Maine came to speak to all the 3-6th graders across the district. As a collaborative partner one of Bob’s goals is to really encourage students to aim for higher education. He encourages girls to look at STEM careers and to make sure they take the courses they need in school to get into college for those careers.
April the girls met and we were starting to plan our big stem event, also wondering if we were going to be able to pull it all together. They started to think of stations we would want and presenters for the day.
May we asked for an extension so that we could do the event in Sept. as it was to close to the end of the year to really pull it together. The extension was awarded which allowed us to really start to look at ordering things for the event.
In May we worked with our collaborative partner Maine College Circle and awarded VIP scholars and scholarships to kids based on writing essays about college and careers. ( see below from what was on TV 5 News that night)
Summer: Materials were ordered collaboration with science teachers and Maine College Circle happened to finalize our event.
Sept. We held our STEM event and did our final surveys. The kids responded that they look forward to holding another one of these events next year.
TV coverage:
Brownville – Students at Brownville Elementary School are taking part in the Maine College Circle Program. They were asked to write essays on what they enjoy doing now, that might make a great career in the future. Seventeen students from the district, which includes Lagrange, are receiving hundred dollar scholarships. ”I’m a fan of education. A lot of times we argue about whether college is good or bad. I think education is great. The more you can get the better.” The idea behind College Circle is to get elementary students thinking about college. ”If we wait until the twelfth grade to start talking to the kids about college there’s a lot we can’t do. If we start talking about the opportunity early we can accomplish a lot.” Fifth-grader Alexandria Kearns wants to go into animal rescue. Her essay was selected as a winner. ”It was amazing how I could be picked because I didn’t think I would be picked.” Director, Bob Stuart says the toughest part of his job is selecting the winners. ”I always have a number of scholarships I hope to award and I always end up awarding more because you read these essay and say c’mon country we need to get behind these kids.” The program is spreading through Brownville quickly. ”We’re so excited to see it keep growing and growing and have all the kids who apply for this and the parents put in the effort to write the recommendation. We’re really excited that it’s not just building with the school but the community.”
News about STEM event as done by TV 5 News:
by Laura Roberts Brownville – A few Mentos candies plus a bottle of Diet Coke equals an explosive experiment. And for these kids, that equation is also a way to make math and science exciting. ”It helps us learn new things, while it’s fun,” said Faith Sickler, a fifth grade student at Brownville Elementary School. That’s the goal for this day of activities at the Brownville Elementary.. Students in fifth and sixth grade from all three elementary schools in the district are learning about the STEM fields, science, technology, engineering, and math, in fun ways. All of the materials used in these activities, including high tech digital microscopes, were paid for by a grant from the Maine Girls Collaboration Project. This gives students the chance to explore the STEM fields in a hands on way. ”We’re really hoping that a lot of the kids will walk away from today thinking these are careers I can do and they’ll expand on that and research it throughout the year and really look into getting that career,” said School Counselor BJ Bowden, who planned this day of activities. Because while they’re just students today, they could be the engineers and scientists of tomorrow.