UAA hosts ASD students at STEM learning event

The UAA Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Group along with the UAA Resilience and Adaptive Management (RAM) Group collaborated with the Anchorage School District to educate teachers on the STEM style of learning and hosted more than 100 K-12 Anchorage School District (ASD) students for "Micro to Macro: A Collaborative Approach to STEM Education" on campus, April 26. The event included a series of educational workshops in the ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building, where students were given a hands-on field trip with sessions on topics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Alaska EPSCoR UAA Outreach Coordinator Holly McQuinn created the event after the RAM-lab was selected to receive a space grant from NASA. She said the funding provided a good opportunity to involve the community's teachers and youth with the university, while also providing them with science, math, engineering and technology education.

"It's a small project, but the impacts are really big," says Holly. "One of the goals is to use the platform as a tool for the community."

Students from ASD were divided into small groups and broke out into educational sessions covering topics ranging from environmentalism to watching a scanning electron microscope presentation. Holly said she was excited about the great response she received not only from ASD, but UAA faculty, who were interested in participating in both the teacher training and student events.

"My goal was to make as many connections as possible," says Holly of creating the event. She emphasized the importance of connecting UAA to the community through education. Providing the teacher training, instructing educators on the STEM method of teaching, as well as hosting an on-site field trip for K-12 students, allows UAA to showcase their research and projects to the community and ultimately provides partnerships. "One of the goals is to use this platform as a tool for the community," Holly says, describing the two events.

For the first year of hosting this event, Holly said she received a lot of support in the way of participation from the university staff, more than she expected. She was surprised that the slots to present, especially at the student field-trip event, filled so quickly.

"We put the call out to the university and got an overwhelming response," says Holly of her recruitment efforts for UAA faculty to lead the education segments. "I think there's an interest in STEM, K-12 education and we see the importance of sharing our work and seeing it utilized in the community." For the inaugural year, Holly says both the teacher training held earlier in April and the K-12 student event was quite successful and she hopes that next year they can continue with another science-focused community educational event.

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