Middle-schoolers get unique science opportunities

By Brittany Carlson, Belvoir EagleMay 1, 2014

STEM
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

Fort Belvoir, Va. (May 1, 2014) - What started as the desire the give military children on Fort Belvoir better science, technology, engineering and math programs has become a community-wide STEM program that continues to grow.

Last weekend, Walt Whitman Middle School's X-STEM Team was invited to present at the USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C. (The X stands for "extra.")

There are 200 students on the team, and about half of them are military children, said Joyce Matthews, X-STEM program manager at WWMS.

"We want the kids to start thinking about these careers (in STEM)," Matthews said. "We know that we do not have people in that workforce, especially American children, so what we're doing now is having fairs like this to kind of get them thinking about their future."

At the festival, the students presented three battery-powered robots they designed to move objects using engineering and problem solving skills.

"We're trying to get it to pick up balls," said Antonio Hernandez, a WWMS 8th grade student on the team. "You have to apply a motor to it and apply smaller motors to get the wheels and the links to move."

Hernandez, who is also a military child, said he enjoys being part of the school's X-STEM team for the fun of it.

"It's very interesting. It's not boring at all," he said.

Col. Gregory D. Gadson, Fort Belvoir garrison commander, visited the team's booth and even tried operating on of their robots Friday.

The X-STEM team also hosted a straw rocket booth at the festival, where they helped guests make paper rockets that could be launched from a straw.

"It's basically force and distance," said I'yana Hatcher, an 8th grader and another military child on the X-STEM team. "The harder you blow, the farther it will go, so that's the science behind the straw rocket."

STEM projects like this present science in a way that's easy to grasp, she said, which is helpful to military children like her because they're constantly moving and need to adjust quickly at new schools.

"Since you move around a lot, you get to experience different types of learning, and a program like this … (has) a specific way of teaching you so you can just get it," she said.

Hatcher also appreciated the opportunities STEM offers to students -- like the chance to attend the USA Science & Engineering Festival.

"The festival is really, really nice. I came here yesterday when they were setting up for the festival and I went to two lectures and I met two astronauts, and then a meteorologist from Channel 7," she said. "I got to ride in a moon buggy. It's like a car -- it was built to go on rocky places like Mars."

According to the USA Science & Engineering Festival website, the festival is a "national grassroots effort to advance STEM education and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers" with exhibitors, performers, speakers and sponsors who represent "a who-is-who of science and engineering in the United States." For more information, visit www.usasciencefestival.org.

A STEM-focused community

Walt Whitman Middle School's STEM program started in response to Fort Belvoir Elementary School's STEM program, which started three years ago with a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity, Matthews said.

"Fort Belvoir wanted to have a grant to definitely infuse more of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics into their program. They were awarded a DoDEA STEM grant for three years. By the second year, we were thinking, 'What's going to happen to our sixth graders when they go to middle school?' because the middle school didn't have a (STEM) program," Matthews said.

Two years ago, DoDEA awarded WWMS a Major Success grant for STEM and the school later became a certified X-STEM school with an ambassador X-STEM team.

Now the school is in the final year of that grant, and Matthews hopes they'll be awarded further STEM grants to continue improving the program for students.

"They're very interested in science. They're interested in the robotics. We have technology groups. So now we want to build on that," Matthews said.

The ultimate goal is to create a STEM-focused cluster of schools for military children here with FBES, WWMS and Mount Vernon High School, Matthews said.

"Our hope is that if our high school, the middle school and the elementary school work together, we're going to build partnerships with colleges and universities," she added.

For more information on the DoDEA STEM Initiative, visits www.dodea.edu/Curriculum/CareerTechEd/stem.cfm