MIT Lincoln Laboratory Girls’ Innovation Research Lab presents Cyber Safety Lab. This workshop will introduce middle school students to how the Internet works and learn about technologies that promote internet safety through interactive activities.
Who: Middle School Students, grades 5-8 When: Saturday, February 29, 2020, 9:30 am - 3 pm Where: MIT Beaver Works Building 31, Cambridge, MA Cost: Free Register at https://mitgirls.eventbrite.com. Contact [email protected] for questions Science and Us, a youth-led nonprofit dedicated to helping high schoolers explore the intersection of STEM and society, is hosting a free Makeathon for middle and high school students at MIT. Who: Middle & High School Students What: Make-A-Thon Where: MIT When: August 17, 2019, 9am - 5pm Why: Hands-on activities are the most direct way for students to understand the challenges and rewards of making STEM accessible and interesting. Cost: FREE Register Here To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates MIT Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is hosting a "Ask Me Anything" Webinar where you can ask questions on college applications, women in stem, career advice, balancing school and extracurriculars, finding confidence in STEM, or anything related to STEM.
Who: MIT SWE Date: Friday, December 4, 2018 Time: 7 - 8 PM RSVP: Deadline, Wednesday December 12, 2018 Register here To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates
This looks like fun! Join MIT Beaver Works at their Racecar Crash Course 6-Week Coding Class for girls being held in Cambridge on Saturdays in November and December.
Who: High School Girls interested in learning coding and robots! When: Saturdays 10 am - 1 pm; Nov 3 - Dec 15 (excluding Thanksgiving week) Where: MIT Beaver Works, Cambridge, MA Cost: Free Register here To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates
MIT Lincoln Laboratory once again is hosting their Science on Saturday events. They offer programs several times throughout the school year for students ages five through seventeen. This fall's first session is Robot-Driven Race Cars where they explore how driverless cars navigate through streets and avoid other vehicles and pedestrians. There will be hands-on activities to demonstrate how robots use sensors and algorithms to see, steer, and race.
Who: Students ages 5- 17 and teachers Where: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington When: Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018 at 10:00 am Cost: Free Register here To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates Cascade is a free program offered through MIT Educational Studies Program (ESP) for students in 9th or 10th grade from local partner Boston area schools. Students will choose two of six core classes which they will take every Saturday for five weeks. Class choices are:
The program includes free lunch and CharlieCards. If you are interested in Cascade, please encourage your school or one of your teachers to contact [email protected] or call 617-253-4882. Who: 9th or 10th grade students at local partner Boston area schools What: Cascade, Student Applications are now Open! Where: MIT's main campus When: Saturday's from 10:30-3pm, October 6th - November 3rd Cost: Free for all students Science & US Conference for High School Students featuring workshops, presentations, and conversations with scientists and journalists from Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University and Boston University Who: High School Students When: Saturday, June 9, 2018 Where: Boston University Cost: FREE Register here To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates My son was lucky enough to be selected as one of sixteen students from across the country to attend LLCipher a few years ago. Lincoln Laboratory offers this FREE summer workshop for high school students who are interested in cybersecurity and math. Students will learn how to build a secure encryption scheme and digital signature.
Persons from underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply Dates: Aug 6 - 11, 2018 Time: 10 am -4 pm Location: MIT, Cambridge, MA Cost: Free, lunch provided Register here Applications due by June 15 To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates MIT is offering a free Science on Saturday program, Rockets and Flight. Science on Saturday is a 60-minute presentation followed with hands-on activity booths. The program is open to elementary, middle and high school students
When: Saturday, March 10, 2018, 10 am - 12 pm Where: MIT Kresge Auditorium Cost: Free No Pre-Registration Required To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates MIT Society of Women Engineers is hosting a free Python Workshop for high school students who are interested in learning how to code. The program encourages females to sign up but is open to all genders. Date: Saturday, March 10 Time: 9 am - 3 pm Cost: Free Registration Deadline: Sunday, March 4, register here To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates What is a high schooler to do in the middle of winter in New England? They can spend the weekend attending Blueprint, a free high school hackathon being held Feb 17 & 18th at MIT. On Saturday, students get to participate in hands-on workshops on programming and iOS development taught by MIT students and others in the industry. On Sunday, they get to work in a team to build a project from scratch with support from mentors (my son participated last year and said their mentors were very helpful in answering questions).
Guest Speaker: Andrew Sutherland, the founder and CTO of Quizlet; featured twice in Forbes Magizine's 30 under 30 list for Education A free t-shirt and meals are provided. Click here to register - Registration ends Saturday, Jan 27th To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates MIT Lincoln Laboratory Beaverworks Center is hosting a one-day "Girls Who Build Music" Tech Workshop for high school girls. The workshop includes keynote speakers from MIT and Bose and includes hands-on activities on how to build a speaker and how to program a guitar synthesizer. The cost is $50 which includes supplies and lunch. Who: High School Females When: Saturday, Feb 3, 2018 Time: 8:30 - 4:30 Where: MIT Lincoln Laboratory Beaverworks Center Cost: $50 Register here To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates
Are you or do you know a young female high school student, currently in the 11th grade, interested in technology? MIT Women's Technology program offers a four week residential academic experience, designed and taught by female MIT graduate students, exploring engineering through hands-on classes, labs and team-based projects. This program is geared towards students with no prior programming background.
This program is free of charge for families with incomes less than $120,000 and $3,500 for families earning more than $120,000. The program includes classes, housing and food. This is a competitive application process with over 500 applications for 40 spots. To learn more watch their YouTube Video or go to their website Program Dates: June 23 - July 21, 2018 Application Deadline: January 15, 2018 Registration is open for students to attend introductory classes at New England colleges by college students. Programs are available for students grade 5 - 12. Check out the schools, dates and links on the Students-STEM page of our site.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory has just announced their first fall Science on Saturday program, The Art of Science. The program explores the intersection of the sciences and performing arts. The Science on Saturday program is for children ages 5-17 (though I find it best for elementary and early middle school students). Two sessions are offered on Saturday, Oct 21, 2017 on from 9-10:30 and another from 10:45-12:15. The program is free of charge.
Mark your calendar, MIT Science on Saturday's 2017-2018 schedule has been released! All events are FREE and opened to students K-12, parents and teachers.
Science on Saturday events on the MIT campus are free and open to all K-12 students, as well as their parents and teachers. Each event features an hour of spectacular on-stage science demonstrations led by MIT presenters with volunteers from the audience, followed by an hour where kids can do their own experiments at 24 different hands-on activity tables. The events will be held 10:00 a.m.-noon on the following Saturdays in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139: October 14, 2017 Biotechnology December 2, 2017 Nuclear Science and Engineering February 3, 2018 Materials with Magical Properties March 10, 2018 Rockets and Flight April 7, 2018 Optics Events are produced by MIT alumnus Todd Rider and sponsored by the MIT Museum and the Akamai Foundation. Attendees receive half-price, same day admission to the MIT Museum. This summer offers another opportunity for rising 7th graders to graduating seniors to take classes at MIT through HSSP. Students can choose from a variety of academic and non-academic courses. The program runs on Sundays from July 9, 2017 - August 13, 2017 from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The cost of the program is $40, as always, generous financial aid is available. Space is limited. The course catalog is expected to be released on May 23rd and registration will open tentatively around May 28th. Registration closes on June 13th. Registration is now open for CODEIT!, a free program offered by MIT students aimed at decreasing the gender-gap in technology. Middle school girls with little or no programming experience will have the chance to explore computer science through interactive workshops and MIT student mentors. The program meets weekly on Saturday afternoons from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. beginning October 7, 2017 through December 2, 2017 (students are expected to attend all classes). Computers and smartphones will be available for student use and a catered lunch will be provided. "girls space day adventure" a day of Hands-on engineering & Science for middle school girls5/9/2017
Girls Space Day Adventure, hosted by The Society of Women Engineers, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, MIT AeroAstro Department and MIT Women's Graduate Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics, will be held this Saturday, May 13, 2017 at the MIT Johnson Ice Rink. Girls, grade 6 - 8, will participate in hands-on activities and demonstrations while learning about the role of science and engineering in space exploration. There will be interactive demonstration and the young women will have the opportunity to meet women scientists and engineers. Student Check-in: 9:30 a.m. - 10 a.m. Speakers & Demos: 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Cost: $15 Pre-registration required. Saturday, May 13, 2017, middle school girls (grades 6-8) will have the opportunity to participate in a free program "Girls Space Day Adventure" being held at MIT's Johnson Ice Rink. This is a FREE program in which young women can participate in hands-on activities while learning about the role of science & engineering in space exploration. They young women will also have a chance to meet and interact with women engineers and scientists.
This event is hosted by The Society of Women Engineers, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, MIT AeroAstro department and the MIT Women's Graduate Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics. 9:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Student Check-In 10:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Speakers and Demos It doesn't seem like much time goes by before I find another cool thing that MIT has to offer the community. Last night, I stumbled across the MIT App Inventor, which is free open source software. It is designed to encourage all people, especially young people, to become creators of technology through the use of drag and drop programming. The website offers a Getting Started Guide, Tutorials, curriculum and teaching resources for teachers, and active community forums. I watched the Ball Bounce Tutorial and created my first app! So, what are you waiting for? Why not get started today? Create something really cool and maybe you will be featured on the website's App of the Month! This is a true love story where the love continues to grow stronger. The story goes back to the beginning of time, or at least my time. In the 1960s, down the halls of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) campus there was a young woman that caught the fancy of a young man. My mother had been working as a secretary in the admissions office and my father also worked on campus. They fell in love and soon married and had two beautiful daughters.
Fast forward about 40 years to 2012, MIT came into our lives when my niece was accepted into their freshman class. This coincided with my oldest son reaching his middle school years. We learned about the SPARK program; this is where the love story really begins. SPARK is a program where middle school kids get to spend the weekend at the MIT campus taking classes on anything and everything. The kids that attend SPARK are made of the same cloth, they are excited to be there because they love being challenged and they love learning. After MIT SPARK came MIT Junction, which is a summer program for select, advanced, self-driven high school students held on the MIT campus for two weeks. Students submit a proposal for an independent study project and those whom are selected are invited to the MIT campus to carry out their project with the support of a knowledgeable student mentor. The students are also able to take college-level hands-on seminars on a variety of topics. My son was lucky enough to be able to participate in this opportunity in 2015. SCRATCH, is part of the curriculum in both my son’s schools, one in elementary and one in high school. It is a free programming language, developed at MIT, where students can build and share stories, games and animations. It can be used as an introduction to programming and logic and can be used at higher levels for more advanced projects. When students are in high school, they are able to attend SPLASH, which is held the weekend before Thanksgiving on the MIT Campus. The program is two days of classes on just about everything. Students, not parents, pick the classes that interest them such as Parody Song Writing, Knitting, Cyberespionage, and Introduction to Ancient Greek. The vibe of the campus is almost electric where you can feel the energy and creativity. It is an incubator of ideas. Oh, if you have a friend, or cousin in our case, that attends MIT stay in the dorms for the full college experience. There are many more reasons we love MIT, but those will be for another post…. STEM Saturdays are another way to get some great exposure to different areas in the Science, Technology, Engineering & Math fields. There are many free programs offered at local area libraries and colleges (some do charge a fee as well).
Last weekend, we enjoyed a wonderful presentation at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington. Welcome to the Jungle was a presentation on life in the Jungle with a focus on Chimpanzees. The presentation included real life experiences of a biologist whom studies Chimpanzees in their natural habitat. We learned how to make a hoot calls, how to identify chimpanzees from each other, the similarities with humans, the jungle environment, and that you need be careful when using a machete to cut a path because the if you cut the wrong branch a cobra might just drop on you! The STEM Saturday programs at Lincoln Laboratories are free and are open to those ages 5-17, though I find the presentations we have been to seem to be geared towards elementary and early middle school. The program is run every two months during the school year and pre-registration is required. Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester offers a STEM Saturdays program for middle school students which is held once a month from November - April. The classes are half day and there is a cost of $180. Parents are required to attend and there are programs geared towards them while their students work on hands-on projects. I previously attended presentations on admissions, financial aid, engineering and speaker sessions. If you're luck enough to live in one of the towns (Boston, Cambridge or Lawrence) that are supported by MIT's SEED Academy they offer a great opportunity for 7th through 10th graders. This free program offers an opportunity to explore engineering fields. Don't forget to check out your local libraries as many also offer STEM programs as well! Fall in New England means the cool crisp air, the vibrant colors of the leaves, pumpkins and the smell of apple pie. For us, fall is a busy time, it's time for SPLASH! No sleeping in late on the weekends, from mid-October through November we are up early, hopping in the car or on a train to get to one of the New England colleges that offer SPLASH (they are offered all over the country).
Why do we do this? My son loves it! SPLASH programs are run by university students to engage middle and high school students in the learning process. Several of the programs are free, the rest are low cost and most of the ones that charge a fee also offer financial aid in order to make the programs accessible to anyone interested. There are so many classes to choose from and they are on anything and everything! Want to Learn the History of Video Games, the Morality of Fictional Characters, Fractal Geometry through Tree Sculptures, Economics Makes Cents or even how to solve a Rubic’s Cube? SPLASH programs offer opportunities to get exposure to topics students may not otherwise have the opportunity. Student may even get an unexpected surprise, such as my son did when he realized Hacking the Mind Through Meditation isn’t a computer science class (oops!). Unfortunately, due to the short season, many of the colleges have SPLASH programs on the same day. This year we struggled since Amherst College and Yale University both were offering their program on November 5th. (You can see a calendar of events on my web page) We have been to both programs before and they were excellent. My son needed to compare their course catalogs to review this fall’s offerings and pick one of them (parents are not allowed to select courses for their student as the goal is student engagement). Again, for November 13th he had to choose between Clark University and Boston College. Luckily, most schools offer SPLASH each year, in both the fall and the spring, so the ones he didn’t make it to this time he can participate in the spring. What is a parent to do while their kids spend the day in classes? Several of the colleges offer parent programs where you can take a sample SPLASH class (regular SPLASH classes are only for students), learn about the college admissions process or get educated on the financial aid process (scary for many of us). You can take a college campus tour (you may want to pre-register for these). Several of the colleges have interesting things to do around them. When visiting Yale, you can explore Yale Museum (free admission) and the schools beautiful architecture (if you’re a photographer you probably want to bring a camera). Northeastern is next to the Museum of Fine arts and Fenway Park. If you’re at MIT, you can walk or take the T over to Faneuil Hall and take a free tour offered through the National Park Service or explore Kendall Square or Newbury Street. Fall festivals may be happening when you’re visiting Amherst College. If you’re not adventurous, there are always places to sit down with a good book or work on your computer. If you haven’t tried SPLASH I encourage you to do so! “Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.” – Karen Ravn |
AuthorWelcome! I'm Debbi and I'm so glad you're here! As a mom of two boys I found it difficult to find resources on STEM programs for my kids. I spent hours researching which resulted in my kids having some amazing STEM opportunities. I want to share information with other families. I try to focus on free or low-cost events so that opportunities are available to children no matter their family's income level. Archives
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