STEM program offers learning, growth opportunities for students
The El Dorado Conference Center became a center for science and learning on Thursday as it hosted a gathering for the Verizon Innovative Learning STEM Achievers program.
STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The conference was a unique one, according to Laura Hildreth, a program coordinator and STEM project specialist at the University of Arkansas in Pine Bluff.
“This is the first time in Verizon Innovative Learning STEM Achievers program that we’re bringing two communities together. What we’re trying to do is strengthen our programs. We’re teaching our young people not only about STEM, but about life,” Hildreth said.
Students who attended on Thursday are members of the VIL program in either a Union County or Pine Bluff school district. As part of the program, they took part in various STEM-related challenges, activities and classes. Some specific activities included making slime, learning about drones and working with virtual reality devices.
Program coordinator Irene Porchia said that organizers are always looking to make more parents aware of the program, which is geared towards students in under-resourced communities, according to Verizon’s website.
“It’s about exposure; we want all of our young people and parents around the Pine Bluff, El Dorado and surrounding areas to know these programs are available to help their kids in school. [The students’] following years are better… after they’ve been through the program,” Porchia said.
“What we’re offering is an opportunity to learn that their lives can be better through STEM,” she added.
Companies with local outposts including Aerojet, LANXESS and Delek sent representatives to teach classes and assist students, the organizers said.
Junior mentors were drawn from local college students, while instructors were certified high school and college STEM teachers.
Hildreth said the framework of the program is based on coding, 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality and entrepreneurship.
“The goal is raising the bar… these are sixth-, seventhand eighth-graders, so if you plant these seeds [now], it will raise test scores, get them into college, and then they aren’t so much in debt trying to get an education degree,” Porchia said.
The program concludes with a “Shark Tank”-style challenge for groups of students to brainstorm, design and pitch their own product.
“Some come through with ideas that no one has ever thought of,” Hildreth said, recalling student ideas such as mobile testing for doctors and clear camera bags for photographers attending public events such as sports games.
“If you give a child a goal, they will meet it,” she added.