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Rising seventh-grader Mackenzie prepares to test his team’s balsa wood bridge at Quantico Middle/High School’s summer Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Academy on June 21, 2013.

Photo by Mike DiCicco

Third annual STEM Academy teaches engineering at middle/high school

21 Jun 2013 | Mike DiCicco Marine Corps Base Quantico

School is out, but 47 students and 13 staffers spent last week at Quantico Middle/High School learning about science, technology, engineering and math.

The school’s third annual Summer STEM Academy included demonstrations by the FBI, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Marine Corps Systems Command and others. But most of the engineering was done by the students themselves, who built and programmed LEGO robots and constructed model bridges, towers and sea craft.

“You’re being given an opportunity to think about what difference you might want to make in this world, in a fun and creative way,” Michael Gould, superintendent of the Department of Defense Education Activity’s New York/Virginia/Puerto Rico school district, told the students as the academy got underway the morning of June 17, 2013.

Brig. Gen. Frank Kelley, commander of Marine Corps Systems Command, enumerated the many problems scientists and engineers are working to solve, from cancer and global warming to nuclear proliferation, famine, malaria and others. “Believe it or not, it starts with folks like you,” he said. “You don’t all have to join the military to help solve some of these problems.”

“I think it’s great because it piques the kids’ interest at a young age,” said Warren Kimmerly, who teaches robotics, computer science and math at the school, as the academy was nearing its end on Friday. “I think a lot of them are seeing what it takes to be different kinds of engineers,” he said, adding that in some cases the students were also gaining an understanding of what their parents do at work.

“You definitely need a lot of patience to be an engineer,” said rising eighth-grader Matt, noting that success came only after many attempts.

He said his favorite challenge was one in which the robots had to knock down an old smokestack and erect a new one. “You have to do more than one thing at once, so it’s more challenging,” he said.

The students had to complete a number of environmentally friendly challenges with their robots, such as turning on a LEGO windmill, closing a hole in a LEGO dam and placing a solar panel on a LEGO building, said Joe Plaia, an engineer with NSWC Dahlgren, who helped coordinate the week. “They’ve got to build their robot in such a way that they think it can achieve all the tasks, and then they’ve got to program it,” he said.

Not all the activities were LEGO-based, though.

Destini, a rising eighth-grader, said her favorite activity was one in which the students competed to see whose boat, built of limited supplies of wire hangers, tin foil and tape, could hold the most BBs. “It was really cool to see how the shape and how you made it affected how it floated and how many BBs it could hold,” she said.

Her favorite demonstration was one by FBI personnel, who had the students carry out forensic experiments to solve a crime.

This was also rising ninth-grader Cadence’s favorite demonstration.

“We all got to interact in it, instead of just sitting and watching,” she said.

Cadence said she’d also enjoyed building the balsa wood bridges the students had tested that morning and the towers they’d made of note cards, as well as the LEGO challenges.

“I like how it’s not just one thing all day, every day — it’s a bunch of different things,” she added.

Matt said he had enjoyed the NSWC Dahlgren demonstration of a railgun — an electromagnetic projectile launcher — which the students replicated with aluminum tape, a nine-volt battery, two magnets and a nail.

Much of the funding for the weeklong academy came from the National Defense Education Program, with support from the College of William and Mary and Marine Corps Systems Command, as well as NSWC Dahlgren and DODEA.

While the students were learning about engineering, the staff was learning about teaching the subject, said middle-school math teacher Rich Tom, noting that the summer academy would help inform the curriculum of the school’s robotics class, which will start its second year in the fall.

“So the kids are now basically testing this out, and when we start again next year, we’ll improve our program,” Tom said.

He said the robotics class and the STEM Academy are also being watched by DODEA leadership as it develops STEM curriculum for the entire military school system.

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com


Marine Corps Base Quantico