Student STEM
Career Awareness Program
Some description text for this item
There’s a lot of the current research telling us why STEM education matters in our schools today. Most of the findings will tell you that science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are where the jobs of the future are. Additionally, STEM workers can expect higher salaries in their fields. Yet, the United States is failing to produce enough skilled STEM workers. Because of this, the United States is fast losing its competitive edge in the world as American students aren’t keeping up with students in other countries in math and science.
The picture becomes even more concerning when you consider the differences in STEM education as it relates to the involvement of minority students.
- *The United States’ inability to achieve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce diversity goals have long been attributed to the failure of the academic “pipeline” to maintain a steady flow of underrepresented minority (URM) students.
- While there have been some gains, national data continue to show that the disparity in STEM degree attainment for URM students (i.e., African American, Hispanic or Latino/Latina, American Indian, and Alaska Natives) increases at each degree level, compared with white and Asian students. (Estrada, Fall 2016)
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Risk Reduction
focused on helping minority
Class Format
CYEP will now begin to provide 4th and 5th graders educational supports within the Arlington County (Drew Elementary School) and Alexandria school(Cora Kelly Elementary) systems focused on helping minority and first generation elementary and middle school students to
understand STEM career opportunities, pathways to college, and the connection between what they are learning in school and real-world application. The program began November 2019!
- Skill development of the 4C’s (collaboration, creativity and innovation, communication, and critical thinking and problem solving).
- Discovery Education Techbooks and Discovery Education Studio,
- Demos and presentations from corporate employees in STEM fields
- Workshops and field trips with Virginia Tech and other selected colleges and universities.
- Each career field will have a learning cycle of 5 weeks and culminate in a student demonstration project
Learning cycle: Five, one (1) hour sessions per Career Field:
Session | Focus | Specific 4C skill | Tools |
---|---|---|---|
Prework | Introduction to the challenge | Critical thinking | DE Studio Board |
1 | Exploration of topic: research | Critical thinking, collaboration | DE Science Techbook |
2 | Exploration of topic: hands on activities | Critical thinking, collaboration | DE hands on activity |
3 | Career connection | Critical thinking, Communication | Guest speaker/field trip |
4 | Student presentation | creation Creativity | DE Studio |
5 | Student presentations | Communication | DE Studio |
1000+
Families ServedThe career fields will include:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Software Engineering
- Cyber Security
- Space
- Robotics
- DevOps
- UX (User Experience)
- UI (User Interface)
- Product Owner