Benedum Foundation Awards FSU Grant to Launch STEM Initiative
Thanks to a grant from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the Fairmont State University School of Education, Health and Human Performance is partnering with TEKids to launch a new program designed to give West Virginia children 21st century Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills, plus life and career skills.
The Board of Trustees of the Benedum Foundation announced that it has awarded a $107,000 grant to the Fairmont State Foundation, Inc. on behalf of the FSU School of Education, Health and Human Performance. Dr. Jeremy Price, Assistant Professor of Education in the Master of Education Digital Media, New Literacies and Learning program, is the principal investigator (PI) for the grant. Dr. Denise Lindstrom, Assistant Professor of Education in the Master of Education Digital Media, New Literacies and Learning program, serves as co-PI for the grant.
“We are very excited by the work ahead of us, and we think it will make an impact on how STEM education is handled in elementary school in North Central West Virginia and the Northern Panhandle and potentially beyond,” Price said.
The FSU School of Education, Health and Human Performance and TEKids of Morgantown, an organization that has been creating and providing afterschool, summer and weekend STEM-related programs for K-12 students in North Central West Virginia since 2012, will unveil “EnergyMakers,” a robust STEM program to integrate into the classroom or afterschool environment throughout the state. The multi-faceted program teaches through a digital, hands-on, minds-on learning approach. The EnergyMakers program combines curriculum, professional development, in-class support and assessments to achieve unparalleled learning outcomes for West Virginia children.
FSU faculty members will serve as curricular and evaluation consultants for the project, as well as provide support in building a learning community among the teachers involved. FSU graduate students in the M.Ed. Digital Media, New Literacies and Learning program also will provide assistance.
The project initially will focus on Harrison, Monongalia, Ohio and Preston counties. The intent is to serve the third-through fifth-grade students and educators in the Fairmont State Professional Development Schools Partnership and the schools of Ohio County, particularly targeting schools in under-served urban and rural settings.
“Our goal for this project is to facilitate an inquiry science-focused community of practice across five elementary schools in the North Central and Northern Panhandle regions of West Virginia,” Price said.
The grant team will be working with the following schools: Bruceton School (Bruceton Mills, Preston County), North Elementary School (Morgantown, Monongalia County), Nutter Fort Intermediate School (Nutter Fort, Harrison County), Ridgedale Elementary School (Morgantown, Monongalia County), and Woodsdale Elementary School (Wheeling, Ohio County). Bruceton, Nutter Fort and Ridgedale are members of the Fairmont State Professional Development Schools Partnership.
“The TEKids EnergyMakers curriculum, which can be used in a combination of in-class and after-school settings, will provide a focus for the teachers to engage in a community of support and learning. These schools will then serve as ‘centers of excellence’ in terms of inquiry-based science, serving as models for the rest of the state,” Price said.
The curriculum will be aligned with Achieve’s Next Generation Science Standards, the basis of all state science standards. The curriculum will include the areas of Engineering Design, Earth and Human Activity and Energy for third- through fifth-graders.
Here’s an example scenario of how the program would work:
In an EnergyMakers classroom, a small group of fifth-graders gather around a laptop and a circuit board, which is collecting information from probes about air quality and energy use. The kids built the system themselves from components and plans made available to them. On the laptop, the small group members, along with students around the state, are monitoring the same shared data. One of the small group of students notices an unexpected reading and points it out to her teacher, who is working with multiple small groups in the classroom. The teacher logs into the online EnergyMakers Teacher Community of Practice web site and posts a question to other teachers about the reading. Within a day, other teachers respond and share similar readings found by their students. The teacher then works with a technology expert and a pedagogy expert on the EnergyMakers team to develop a plan for working with the small group on interpreting the data. The process goes so well that the teacher gathers the entire class around the small group and has the student who found the reading explain to her classmates the significance of the data.
The mission of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation is to encourage human development in West Virginia and Southwestern Pennsylvania through strategically placed charitable resources. For more information, visit www.benedum.org.
The mission of the Fairmont State Foundation, Inc., is to support, through ethical stewardship, the mission of Fairmont State University. The Foundation will identify, establish and cultivate meaningful relationships with Fairmont State alumni, as well as potential and existing funding constituencies to meet contributor needs while securing funds and supporters for priority objectives identified by the Board of Governors. For more information, visit www.fsufoundation.org.
The mission of Fairmont State University is to provide opportunities for individuals to achieve their professional and personal goals and discover roles for responsible citizenship that promote the common good. In its overarching desire to help transform lives, Fairmont State University values scholarship, opportunity, achievement and responsibility. For more information about the School of Education, Health and Human Performance, visit http://www.fairmontstate.edu/schoolofeducation/.
School of Education, Health and Human PerformanceJeremy PriceTEKidsSTEMEnergyMakersClaude Worthington Bendum Foundation
