H-E-B schools to boost interest in STEM programs next fall

When students return to the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district this fall, a new initiative will help them prepare for well-paying careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In kindergarten through 12th grade, the district plans to boost interest in STEM and guide students toward a career or entrance into college.

“The idea is to create student interest and grow potential skills,” said Kiera Elledge, H-E-B’s coordinator of STEM and school libraries. “By third or fourth grade, students have made up their mind about whether they’re good in math or science, so we need to catch them in those grades, and give them a chance to try.”

By the time students reach junior high, they’re more focused on where they want to go, said Elledge.

Central Junior High in Euless will pilot the STEM School of Choice program in the fall.

It’s about much more than being smart in math and science, educators say.

“Everything we do in my class is about practical application and teamwork,” said Matthew Simmons, the science department lead teacher at Central Junior High. “For every project we do, it’s not about sitting in chairs. It’s not about filling out worksheets. All of the stuff we do is about teamwork. We do project-based learning.”

Simmons’ ninth-grade physics class was recently working on a Rube Goldberg machine, a device that takes elaborate steps to perform a simple function. In this case, students created 25 steps to turn on an Easy Bake oven.

“Basically we do a bunch of useless steps to do just this one thing,” said student Jeremiah Harper. “In this case, the requirements were that it had to have 25 steps, it had to fit in this room and it had to be vertical, because last year it was horizontal.”

Part of the device was patched together with “a junkyard shelf that even tilts at a one-degree angle,” and “a lot of tape and masking tape,” said Harper.

‘Forced to interact’

Behind the fun is a lot of hard work and brain power. Simmons’ class is filled with pre-International Baccalaureate and pre-Advanced Placement students. The ninth-graders are capable of doing trigonometry and physics typically taught at the junior level in high school.

Student Danielle Royer said the Rube Goldberg project taught the class more about variables for distance and speed.

“It’s also a lot of trial and error,” she said. “We’ve all worked together but never as an entire class. After this, we all go on to Trinity or Bell [high schools]. This is our last chance to work on a big project as an entire class.”

Sometimes the students argued over the process.

“Usually one of them will take over and say, ‘How are we going to solve this?’ Simmons said. “I love to hear that coming from a ninth-grader.”

In that regard, students are also learning social skills that will prove valuable in the workplace and beyond in their adult lives. They learn how to accept their differences and focus on the goal at hand.

“They’re forced to interact,” Simmons said.

Regular education students are also being integrated into the program. Some students are good with working with their hands, a skill set many of Simmons’ advanced academics students don’t have.

“Some of our kids are predisposed to working with their hands; that’s why we’re giving them the exposure to working with engineering and robotics,” said Simmons. “Some of those kids can build a robot. Some of these kids can’t work with their hands. Yet they can program; they can do the mathematics. You need both of those kids together on a team.”

The differences in abilities and learning styles “make each of them better,” he said.

‘Learning by doing’

The initiative is designed to take the district’s existing STEM courses and “align them into a STEM Schools of Choice Program,” according to information provided by H-E-B. The program also gives students a say in how and what they learn.

In addition to Central Junior High, Stonegate Elementary School in Bedford and the Buinger Career and Technical Education Academy, which draws students from L.D. Bell and Trinity high schools, will pilot the STEM program this fall.

Third- and fourth-graders will be the first to participate at Stonegate Elementary. Lessons in science, math, art and music will be used to introduce students to STEM concepts.

For the first semester of the school year, students will learn basic concepts. In the second semester, they will choose an area of STEM they would like to pursue for a showcase project, according to curriculum plans.

When elementary students learn about force and motion, for example, they will also learn about force and motion in “flocabulary” rap. According to the flocabulary rap website, the program uses hip-hop music to pique student interest.

“In elementary school, it’s very much learning by doing,” Elledge said. “We want to introduce them to STEM and what are the concepts, and for them to be able to create with any type of art and any type of medium. I think they will gravitate more to one than the other, but unless they’re exposed to them all, they won’t know which one they like.”

In June, Stonegate is offering a STEM summer camp for elementary students from across the district.

It really is rocket science

After junior high, STEM students with exceptional abilities in math and science may choose to enter the aerospace technology program at the Buinger Academy. Starting in the 2016-17 school year, Buinger will also offer a practicum (or internship) in aerospace.

A group of honors students from the Buinger Academy recently designed and launched rockets during the Rockets 2016 event at Stewart’s Hillview Ranch in Fredericksburg. Students from 40 Texas high schools launched a total of 80 rockets.

During the event, students sent either a rocket with 1-pound payload up 1 mile high, or send a rocket to the sound barrier. The 8-foot rockets were designed and built from scratch. To make the project more challenging, students were given basic parameters, but not all of the information needed to build the rocket, said Debra Harvey, assistant principal at the Buinger Academy.

Through the program, students were introduced to many of the same concepts used by NASA.

“It gives you a very good introduction because rocket science, whether on a small scale or a large scale, is very similar,” said student Brandon Hale.

It wasn’t a competition, but a way for students to test what they had built.

“They design, develop, test, and evaluate, just like NASA,” said Harvey.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 6:31 PM with the headline "H-E-B schools to boost interest in STEM programs next fall."