Camp Creates STEM Curriculum at Marsh
Today marked the culmination of a lengthy process when students from Parish Episcopal School, Marsh Middle School Preparatory Academy, and the Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy in southern Dallas, showed how they worked together for two weeks to build the academy’s STEM program with a strong foundation and through an advanced curriculum.
Parish students Whitney Wheeler and Sophie Alfred, and Stephen F. Austin University student Rebecca Woods, the daughter of a Parish educator, volunteered their time during the camp to mentor the students, as well as to build a FIRST LEGO League competition table, met to requirements, for the students. Jenn Makins, director of STEM education at Parish, supervised the camp with Ben Hendric, an eighth-grade science teacher at Marsh.
Parish Episcopal donated its Design Den space for use by the camp, and raised funds to support the free two-week camp. Marsh will be the first middle school in DISD to offer a STEM program.
“I never would have thought about studying engineering before this program and I have had a great time,” said Marsh student Dani Mays, who before the experience would have preferred to take dance or theater, but would now be happy in the fall to be assigned to a robotics course.
At Thursday’s culmination program, students competed in challenges for self-programmed robots, as well as performed load testing on bridges they built through learned concepts of engineering design and forensic science.
Thanks to Deb Silverthorn for submitting this story.
