Is Cambridge a little too far for you to trek for the Cambridge Science Festival? No worries, on Saturday, April 15th the Boys & Girls Club of Fitchburg & Leominster will be hosting their 4th Annual Central MA Science Festival from 10 am - 3 pm.
This FREE event has hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math) Activities for all ages, children to adult. There will be demonstrations, exhibitions and workshops throughout the day. Today is the last day to receive 25% off Higher Orbits "Go To Launch" Summer program.
Go For Launch! is a 3-day program that uses Space Exploration as a platform to launch student involvement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, teamwork, communication, and leadership. Speakers include a NASA Astronaut who will present with Michelle Lucas who spent over 10 years working at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Students will be broken into teams and must work together and complete task for daily rewards. Each team must define and design a space experiment which will be presented to a panel of judges with the winning team having a chance to have their experiment launched to the International Space Station! Event for students in grades 8 -12 to be held at the Boys & Girls Club of Fitchburg & Leominster on August 22 - 24, 2017. Cost is $250 per student and includes supplies, lunch, snacks, t-shirt, patch and other goodies. Discount to STEM Advocates users: MASTEM25 for 25% off through the end of March 2017 (Disclaimer: STEM Advocates does NOT receive compensation of any kind for those registering for this program. This information is provided as a public service announcement) This Sunday, April 2, Boston College will be hosting their spring Splash program for students grade 7 - 12. Splash is a program put on by college students which can be any anything and everything.
Registration closes at midnight tonight! For a link to Boston College and other New England SPLASH programs go to our Student's section of the site and select Splash. Go For Launch! is a 3-day program that uses Space Exploration as a platform to launch student involvement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, teamwork, communication, and leadership. Speakers include a NASA Astronaut and Michelle Lucas who spent over 10 years working at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Students will be broken into teams and must work together and complete task for daily rewards. Each team must define and design a space experiment which will be presented to a panel of judges with the winning team having a chance to have their experiment launched to the International Space Station! Event for students in grades 8 -12 to be held at the Boys & Girls Club of Fitchburg & Leominster on August 22 - 24, 2017. Cost is $250 per student and includes supplies, lunch, snacks, t-shirt, patch and other goodies. Discount to STEM Advocates users: MASTEM25 for 25% off through the end of March 2017
Tech Savy is a program for rising 7th and 8th grade girls, sponsored by the Boston Area Girls STEM Collaborative. The young women's days will be busy learning how to use a 3D printer, develop a phone app, use circuits, create an animation and build robots. Students will have activities at Wentworth Institute of Technology, UMass Boston, MIT, Northeastern University and Harvard University. The program is being held July 24-28, 2017 and the cost is $250 and includes lunch. Reduced tuition of $50 is available to students that are covered by MA Health, SNAP or TAFDC. Drop off and Pickup is at Boston University.
It is that time of year again, registration is open for Northeastern University's Building Bridges program. It is a bi-annual event for high school students interested in exploring the school's College of Engineering. The day is packed with interactive engineering activities that cross a variety of engineering disciplines. Students have a chance to learn about research programs and potential career paths. This spring's even is being held on April 7, 2017 from 9 am - 2 pm and costs $15 (including breakfast & lunch). While students attend the program parents have a chance to explore the campus or the local Boston area.
Do you know a young high school freshman or sophomore woman that has an interested in computer security? Codebreakers is a program offered through Boston University where young women will learn security concepts through gaming, modeling and simulations development. Students will learn how to program in Python, gain exposure to robotics, digital forensics, cryptography, system vulnerability and cyberethics. They will have engaging presentations from a variety of guest speakers. The Codebreakers program will run from July 10 - August 4, 2017. The cost for the program is $100 and includes lunch. Applications are open and must be received by May 1, 2017.
Last summer was eye opening for me. My nephew was a senior in high school and starting the college application process. I listened and took mental notes as my sister updated me on their process of planning for college in the fall. This included making college visits, filling out applications, completing the financial aid process and of course college decisions. To say this process seemed overwhelming was an understatement! College admissions may seem like a ways off, my oldest son is a high school sophomore, but I'm a firm believer in educating yourself early. I began to get informed and wanted to share some things that have helped me along the way:
MIT just announced today that registration for MIT's popular SPARK Program for 7th and 8th grade students is now open. Want to learn a little more about SPARK? Check out my blog post from October "A SPARK in STEM makes a SPLASH".
This year's SPARK two-day program will be held March 11 & 12th on the MIT Campus. Students select from 200 class offerings, registration for classes is open through February 28th at 11:59pm, after which classes will be assigned through a lottery system. To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow: STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates Northeastern University kicks off the spring SPLASH season, with classes being held Saturday, March 18 and March 25, 2017. What is SPLASH you ask? SPLASH programs, run by university students, are held at colleges all over the country with the purpose of fostering the love of learning in young students. Students have many classes to choose from and they are on anything and everything. Parents can't select the class, the student chooses what is of interest to them. Northeastern's SPLASH program is for high school students and is offered free of charge, even providing lunch and a t-shirt for attendees. To register, click on the link through Learning U. To see additional New England programs and their program details, see the STUDENT/SPLASH section of our site.
Registration for summer programs offered through the Center for STEM Education are open. All their programs are free of cost, except NUSSP/YSP which has a $100 confirmation fee upon acceptance to the program. NUSSP (Northeastern Summer STEM Program) - For rising 6-8th graders only. Program dates are: May 20 (Sat), June 3 (Sat), June 17 (Sat), June 26-30 (Mon-Fri) YSP (Young Scholars Program) - For rising 12th graders only. June 26 – August 3 GE Girls - For rising 7th/8th grade girls only. July 10-14 IFTP (Imaging the Future of Transportation): For rising 9th/10th graders only. July 17-28 To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates The media room at the Leominster Public Library exploded with excitement and chatter on Wednesday, February 22, 2017, when Thi Sarkis of the Rhode Island Computer Museum encouraged children to summon the Ender Dragon. Seventeen boys and girls, between the ages of eight and twelve, participated in a free two hour Coding with Minecraft Workshop where they were introduced to coding concepts using JavaScript. Minecraft is a wildly popular sandbox game, where players can create, explore and customize their own virtual worlds using building blocks.
Laptops were provided for use to each participant, many of which had no prior experience with Minecraft or coding. Students sat at tables in groups of four and were able to connect and play together on a secure server. Looking around the room you could see custom built houses, forts, castles, and skyscrapers. The kids learned how to change the weather to make it rain, to build giant rainbows and how to summon lightning bolts with a bow and arrow. The kids didn’t realize they were building on their creativity, collaboration and problem solving skills, they just knew they were having lots of fun. To keep up on STEM Happenings throughout New England follow STEM Advocates at www.mySTEMresource.com and on Facebook and Twitter @STEMAdvocates Yale Splash is one of the larger SPLASH programs in New England. (If you are wondering what SPLASH is, check out my "SPLASHing Into Fall" post from last fall). This year they are making a few changes to the program. First, they will be reserving some spots from each class that will be distributed through a lottery system. Classes tend to fill up fast, so this gives everyone a chance to try to get a spot in a class that is highly desired by the student. The program fee for Yale SPLASH is $20 per student (lunch included).
Secondly, there will be a new parent program which will include lectures from Yale Professors, talks by admissions officers, campus tours and sample SPLASH classes. There will be a fee of $15 for one parent ticket and $25 for two. Don't let financial concerns deter you, almost all SPLASH programs offer the opportunity for need-based financial aid. Yale SPLASH will have financial aid applications available. Yale SPLASH will be held on Saturday, April 8, 2017. Registration will open on March 8, 2017. Check out the dates for other New England SPLASH dates under the Student tab of our website. This Saturday, 1NTERRUPT, will be hosting a free hands-on cyber security program for students throughout Massachusetts, ages 14-22, on the campus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Yesterday, I had the privilege of chatting with Marc Blackmer the founder of 1NTERRUPT, the Worcester based non-profit organization with a passionate all-volunteer team of IT and cyber security professionals and educators. Their goal is to demystify and make cyber security education more accessible. This is the fourth year this event will be held in Worcester, growing from 16 students in the first year to reaching full capacity of 70 students this year. Ryan Canuel, co-founder and CEO, of Petricore Games will be the key note speaker at the event. 1NTERRUPT is not just another day of school, students are introduced to the concepts of cyber security through real-world challenges from the perspective a white-hat hacker. The first part of the day will focus on ethics, web development, network security and hardware. The second part of the day, teams will be forged where students work together in break out sessions and focus on real world problem solving. The students will complete a treasure hunt where they will need to overcome a series of difficult technical hurdles. It is important to remember the quote from Albert Einstein "We can not solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them". Students will work together using offensive techniques in a simulated environment to defeat the bad guys that hacked into the network and take back control. Want to see in more detail what the program is about? Check out the YouTube video from the 2015 event. If you head up the coastline of New Hampshire, in Durham, not far from Portsmouth, you'll find the University of New Hampshire. In the summer, the campus will be buzzing with students attending one of many summer youth camps. They have a wide selection of STEM related camps which we have featured below:
EPIC - a day camp geared for students grades 4-6, is focused on an introduction to programming using Lego Mindstorm robots to solve real world challenges. No prior programming experience required. KEEPERS - a one week, half-day camp, for students entering grades 2-5, offering hands-on engineering challenges. Programs run three separate weeks in July. Marine Programs at Shoals Marine Lab - Earn college credit while taking marine science courses! The two-week Marine Environmental Science courses earn 3 college credits and the one-week Sharks, Skates, and Rays earn students one college credit. Plant Camp - a one week day program exploring plants and their uses. Grades 3-6 Project SMART - a residential three-week program for talented high school students to study advanced topics in science, mathematics and computers. Students receive 4 UNH credits. Scholarships available. TechCamp - in their 12th year, UNH's College of Engineering and Physical Science offers a set of summer STEM programs for students from grades 6 - 12. Engineerista offers two camps for girls entering grades 6 -10 to explore the world of science and engineering. TechSplorers, for boys and girls grades 6 - 8, explores electrical, mechanical, civil, structural and environmental engineering though hands-on activities. TechVenturers, for grades 6 - 10, is for campers who are ready to work on an in-depth project, where they will engage in the engineering design process and problem solving. TechLeaders, for grades 11 & 12, is a two-week program where students will focus on a two-week long engineering project and will build their leadership and entrepreneurial skills. TechCamp offers both commuter and residential options. Registration for most programs begin on March 6, 2017. Scholarships are available. Many New England colleges are in the process of releasing SPLASH spring programs dates and times. SPLASH is a one day or weekend event, held on college campuses across the country, with the purpose of proving a fun opportunity to excite and engage middle and high school students in learning process. Classes, designed and taught by college student volunteers, are on anything and everything. Programs are offered free, low cost with financial aid available, or with a suggested donation so that cost is not a barrier for any student. Learning Unlimited (LearningU) is the non-profit organization, founded in 2007, which supports these self-sustaining student groups to provide learning opportunities to school students. Educational programs offered throughout the country are listed on their website at www.learningu.org. STEM Advocates offered a quick list to many of the SPLASH programs available in New England with their dates, times and costs at under the Student section of mySTEMresource.com. We have attended many, many SPLASH programs over the last couple of years and are very grateful for the wonderful opportunities provided. My son has had the opportunity to have exposure to many topics he may have not otherwise had the opportunity to learn about. If you're heading to this spring's New England SPLASH programs we hope see you there! The weekend of March 4 & 5, 2017, motivated high school students will be heading to the MIT Campus to attend Blueprint, a learnathon and hackathon event. The program is free, you are welcome to attend one or both days. The learnathon is held on Saturday where you can attend hand-on programming workshops taught by MIT students. On Sunday, the hackathon is held, this is where you work as part of a team to build a project from scratch. Don't worry if you don't have a team, there will be a team formation session at the beginning of Blueprint to help you. Hurry, applications are open until Wednesday, February 1, 2017!
oLast night, my 10 year old and I got our first introduction to 3D printing using his new 3Doodler Pen Set. He is hooked! He was thrilled with the helicopter he made using the template that was provided in the project book. He now wants to make more and sell them at school, maybe I'll have a little entrepreneur on my hands!
The pen is super easy to use. To my delight, it actually came charged so we were able use it right away. He just had to press the orange button on the pen to turn it on and then insert a plastic strand to start printing. Neither the pen or the plastic got too hot to the touch and we were able to handle the objects right away. I would recommend this product to those who enjoy the blend of art and technology. I know it's going to be well used in our house. I'll be ordering some plastic refills soon! Boston University (BU) is one of the many New England Colleges that offer an opportunity to have a summer pre-college experience. High school students have the chance to live on campus, learn, meet new friends and experience college life. BU offers five different opportunities for students from entering freshmen to rising seniors. Two of the programs, High School Honors and Research in Science and Engineering offer financial aid while the other three do not. High School Honors - Take undergraduate courses and earn up to 8 college credits. For rising seniors and exceptional rising juniors. 6 Weeks, July 2 - Aug 11, 2017. $50 application fee. Cost $8,518 for 8 credits. Financial Aid Available. ($50 application, $5,230 tuition, $470 service, $2,718 room, board & 19 meals/wk - an additional $200 lab fees may be applicable) Research In Science & Engineering (RISE) - Pursue scientific research in university laboratories. For rising seniors. 6 Weeks, July 2 - Aug 11, 2017. Non-credit. $50 application fee. Cost $7,538. Financial Aid Available. ($50 application, $4,300 tuition, $470 service, $2,718 room, board & 19 meals/wk) Academic Immersion - Focus intensively on psychology or medicine while living on a college campus. For rising juniors and seniors. 2 Weeks, Psychology: July 2 - July 21/Medicine: July 23 - Aug 11, 2017. Non-Credit. No financial aid available. $50 application fee. Cost $6,050 ($50 application, $6,000 tuition, room & board) Summer Challenge - Explore two subjects of your choice and experience college life. For rising sophomores, juniors and seniors. Two Weeks, Choice of 3 sessions: Session 1: Jun 18-30; Session 2: Jul 9-21; Session 3: Jul 23-Aug 4, 2017. Non-Credit. No financial aid available. $50 application fee. Cost $3,950 ($50 application, $3,900 tuition, room & board) Summer Preview - Delve into one subject of your choice and preview life at college. For entering freshmen and rising sophomores. One Week, July 23-July 28, 2017. Residential & Commuter Program options. Non-Credit. No financial aid available. $50 application fee. Cost $1,883 Residential/ $1,487 Day (Residential=$50 application, $1,380 tuition, $453 room & board; Commuter=$50 application, $1,380 tuition, $57 Lunch) 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…. I am very excited to report that our new website address is up and running. We wanted something that would be easy to remember. You can now find us at www.mySTEMresource.com !
It's not officially winter, until tomorrow, but we have already been thinking about Summer 2017. That's right, some STEM programs are already accepting applications for next summer. In our house, we have already submitted two applications and are working on a third! In January, many more summer registrations open. If you are looking at pre-college programs some of these applications provide a good opportunity for the college application process. Many applications have multiple essay questions for the student to answer, so set aside some time to be able to provide thoughtful responses. One application that my son completed even required a video introduction from the student. Financing summer programs can be a significant concern for many families but please be aware that many programs offer financial aid and even a few are free for those whom are selected. Some colleges provide a fundraising guide for students with ideas on how to raise money for tuition. A few of the summer pre-college program require an application fee and they can be highly selective. If you qualify for free or reduced lunch you might qualify for an application fee waiver. My recommendations:
If you're "Wondering why would I consider a pre-college summer program?", here are our reasons:
As I get ready for another holiday season I reminisce on some of our favorite toys from Christmas past.
Building Blocks – the type of blocks change over the years but building blocks have been a staple since my kids were babies. As the kids grew, we added the giant cardboard building blocks, the perk with these blocks is that you could build them really tall and then knock them over without anyone getting hurt. My youngest is 10 now so has graduated to the KEVA planks (see review below) which provide hours of fun. Build you own Volcano Kits – are a favorite (there are many brands out there), the one we used was Smithsonian. We love them because not only are you able to create explosions, you actually build the volcano as well (depending on which kit you purchase). Watching the excitement in the kids’ eyes and hearing the giggles as the lava shoot out of the volcano is one of my favorite memories…even when the lava exploded up to the ceiling. Crystal Growing Experiment Kit - three of these appeared at our last birthday party. My son was appalled when I suggested just keep one and exchange the others. These kits have actually been great, it’s a very gender neutral activity as we’re finding all the kids love to grow them. We have had kids over to setup the experiment and then send photos of the crystals as they grow. We’ve also brought a kit over to a friend’s house so they could grow them together there. (I like the regular kits best, the glow in the dark ones didn’t glow) KEVA – We have the Contraptions Set and has many hours of engineering his own towers and shoots. We first discovered these at the Boston Museum of Science and had to get some to have at home. We also have the Trebuchet kit just waiting to get built. LEGO – I wish this company publicly sold stock because we would have definitely invested, we spent so much money on Legos! My oldest had been a LEGO fanatic from the time he was small until about 13, I can’t tell you how many sets he owns, but it’s a lot! We have Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Minecraft, and the list goes on. My younger son is also into LEGOs though enjoys the Marvel Super Hero, Angry Birds, and Lego City sets. At 10, he requested toys to play with in the tub, but I couldn’t find anything age appropriate. LEGO to the rescue. I was so excited to find the Deep Sea Exploration set with a “floating” vessel. He will be able to build the set but can actually use it in the tub too! Lincoln Logs – An oldie but goodie, everyone needs a chance to build a log cabin! Thames & Kosmos – We loved the Archeology Pyramid Dig when we did it with my oldest son that we repurchased the kit when my younger son was old enough. The kids needed to use hieroglyphics to decipher the secret code to unlock the pyramid. Then they undertook an archeological dig to discover the hidden treasured buried deep inside. The book that comes with this set provides lots of cool things to learn about archeological science. Tinker Toys – We stuck with the Classic Construction Set Zoob – We have a Zoob Builder bucket and have had it for years. This is hands down been one of my favorite toys to play with the kids. There are 5 different style pieces that snap together making things that can turn and twist. There is a booklet included with lots of design ideas or just use your imagination and create something of your own. The opinions expressed are my own and no compensation of any kind has been received for this review. The review is based on toys we have purchased or received as a gift and have actually used. |
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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