How A Middle School Is Making STEM Careers More Attainable For Its Diverse Students

RALEIGH, N.C. - March 11, 2024 - PRLog -- "Our students are primarily African-American and for them, careers in STEM seemed unattainable before we began working with STEM For Kids," says Cheryl Lawson, the Superintendent of The Lawson Academy in Houston, Texas.

For 4 school years, STEM For Kids has been working diligently with The Lawson Academy ( https://thelawsonacademy.org/ ) .

As the engagement progressed, STEM For Kids' curriculum experts customized programs to focus on the Maritime sector to make vital STEM career connections for the students.

During fall 2023, a group of about 30 middle-school girls were tasked to research pollution in waterways, the maritime industry's work to minimize such pollution, and to devise solutions that their family, school, and community could implement to contribute towards minimizing pollution.

After months of engaging hands-on STEM learning, the middle-school girls presented their findings and solutions to a group of peers, teachers, administrators, and parents showcasing their learning, research and recommendations.

For this group of 30 students, their STEM journey involved:

• Researching careers such as Maritime Engineers, Marine Biologists and Naval Architects.
• Learning the technical aspects of how to create a website from scratch.
• Developing compelling messaging and structuring the information on their websites.
• Practicing interpersonal skills like communicating with peers, and working in teams while helping each other.
• Contributing to their community with a  focus on empathy, respect, compassion, diversity, and inclusion while exploring healthy empowered citizenship.

"... we have watched as our middle-school girls (and boys) have experienced web design, programming, and entrepreneurial approaches to phone applications that they created.  Nothing we can do in the lecture-mode of instruction is as effective or as engaging as the … learning that STEM for Kids has provided to our school.  We have found that what was at first unattainable is becoming the career direction for students at The Lawson Academy.  Thank you, STEM for Kids, for all you do to help us grow strong women in STEM.," says Ms. Lawson.

The students' showcases of their presentations are available for viewing here: https://youtu.be/L6OvHxQcusM


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STEM For Kids® enables purpose-driven educators and entrepreneurs to bring life- and career-readiness skills to preK-8 children in their communities.

With over 1500 hours of STEM activities in various themes covering engineering (aerospace, civil, mechanical, environmental, bio-medicine), technology (coding, robots, Artificial Intelligence, Internet Of Things), business and social emotional learning, educators, parents and students have a lot to get excited about.

STEM For Kids® ranked #173 on the highly coveted Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 list. With a growing network of STEM For Kids® operators, educators, trained teachers, and franchisees, we have impacted numerous communities across the globe. Add your community now, https://teach4d.stemforkids.net/edu-services

For media inquiries contact sales@stemforkids.net.