Colorado State University, Northern Colorado Schools STEM Partnership Demonstrated on Saturday, Feb. 11

On Saturday, Feb. 11, northern Colorado high school science and engineering teams that have worked with Colorado State University graduate fellows as part of the NSF GK-12 project will present their research and engineering design solutions on the university’s Fort Collins campus.

The event will be from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Lory Student Center North Ballroom.

Since Sept. 2011, high school students have worked in teams made up of science, engineering, and math students to solve several significant design challenges to design, test, and build an engineered system. By design, this project strategically immerses CSU graduate fellows and their advisors with K-12 teachers and students to bring new inventive STEM teaching and learning to the classroom.

Seven science, math, and engineering teachers from four Colorado school districts work with the six graduate fellows and their advisors at CSU during each academic year to collaborate on updating curricular material for K-12 schools. They design new content modules and participate in summer research activities in CSU research labs for professional development and to grow content knowledge for teachers.

At the university’s Engineering Exploration Day on Saturday, high school science and engineering teams from participating schools will unveil their research and engineering design solutions.

The partnership demonstrates that federal research monies from the National Science Foundation can be used to advance research at Colorado State but can also benefit teachers by providing them with STEM content knowledge that impacts students directly.

“This program is an example of how education is working for Colorado residents. Their universities and schools are working together to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers,” Professor Michael A. de Miranda, one of the project principal investigators, said.

Added Scott Kindt, one of the participating teachers from Berthoud High School, “For many of the students in this project, it was their first time making a science research poster and presenting their work to a public audience. I received nothing but positive feedback from this project. Even my school superintendent Dr. Ron Cabrera wrote me a nice email about how impressed he was with this stereo engineering design project.

“During the CSU Explore Engineering Day event, two-thirds of my students and Mr. Rob Summerfeld’s engineering students will be at CSU,” Kindt said. “Reading my students’ final reflection on this project, it was amazing that every student said they enjoyed this project and would do it again. They also stated how much they learned and were amazed that they could engineer a stereo system.”

For more information about the NSF program, go to http://csu-gk12.engr.colostate.edu/.

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