Get FIT (Females In Technology)
I have a wonderful new experience to share with everyone about an event that was created and carried out with eighth grade female students in Butler County. Recently, the Tri-County Workforce Investment Board introduced the opportunity for the county schools to write a grant and receive funding for career awareness activities. Being the grant writer for BCAVTS, I gave quite a bit of thought of how to use this funding most effectively. Since I am also involved in Perkins activities and Perkins funding, I started to look at our populations served through Perkins to see what a little extra funding boost could do to help us reach some of our goals.
I do believe that this was one of those times when the stars and planets aligned and good things happened. With the input of the BCAVTS Guidance Counselor and the needs of the schools in our community in mind, we created a one day experiential seminar that would give young women some experiences in STEM related activities; that would show the applications of learning math, science, and technology concepts from their academic classes; and would provide career awareness that relates the importance of scheduling STEM classes in high school to real world jobs.
We did not re-invent the wheel. I researched all sorts of programs that offered similar activities and had similar objectives. If you are interested in looking, there are wonderful models out there! We took some of those models as a pattern and formed activity workshops in six of our CTE classrooms that would give eighth grade female students of AVERAGE math and/or science ability a look into the world of STEM applications.
We had written the grant for 20 students and had 36 participate in our day. I had to turn away requests to attend which was upsetting to me while during last week I was afraid nobody would be participating. It was constant waivering between getting fit and having one.
The day was a success. Our teaching staff was remarkable with their lesson plans that showed a math/science/technology standard taken from the academic arena and directly applied the standard to the world of CTE. The use of academics, tools, and creative minds was a joy to experience. During one of the sessions, some of our seniors who were helping the eighth grade girls learn about electricity and do some basic wiring for a circuit, asked why this wasn’t offered before as they saw it to be a valuable experience in career awareness. The math teachers, science teachers, counselors, and principals that brought the students seemed to learn a little bit more from our perspective.
As part of the day, we traveled to Butler County Community College for a taste of what is available just down the road. The folks there were wonderfully receptive and so supportive of the whole seamless transition idea. I don’t think that many of the eighth graders knew much about nanotechnology prior to our visit, but they had a brief exposure to what that world really includes. A math instructor from BC3 spoke directly to the importance of STEM in the world of today.
It was a full day of activities made possible by people who actually care! Thanks everyone. Let me know if you would like more information on our model. I am happy to share.
