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STEM on mind of Struthers school administration
STRUTHERS
STEM is on the minds of Struthers school district administrators this year.
The district recently hired a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math teacher at the middle school and plans to get donated 3-D printers for the high school and middle school in about a week.
Dom Larricia is the district’s first STEM teacher in the middle school. Superintendent Joseph Nohra said the school district would like to hire another teacher, but he said it is too early to tell whether that is a possibility.
“The plan is to have [Larricia’s class] and a full-time STEM class for seventh- and eighth-grade students,” he said. “We have to look at funding, though. We don’t want to say for sure we can do this.”
Nohra said the school district needed to hire Larricia to teach a nine-week course called STEM for middle school students. He said this is Larricia’s first year of teaching. Larricia studied math and science at Youngstown State University.
Nohra said the middle school and high school will each receive a 3-D printer within the next week.
“Youngstown is a hub for 3-D printing,” Nohra said. “We want to be a part of that by training students about that industry. I think all school districts want to provide folks to enter that workforce.”
The INVENTORcloud program, developed by Applied Systems and Technology Transfer (AST2), donated the two Invent 3-D printers to Struthers schools.
Julie Michael Smith, executive vice president at AST2 and executive director of Advanced Methods in Innovation, said most 3-D printers cost between $500 for a basic printer to upward of $2,500.
She said prices depend on the sophistication of the device.
Michael Donatelli, who teaches at the middle school and high school, said he plans to use the 3-D printers in both his 3-D printing and Computer Numerical Control machines classes at the high school.
“I’ll have the students in my 3-D printing class start out making logos and keychains,” he said. “We’ll probably get into bigger projects like making clocks later on.”
The school district also implemented STEM modules in the elementary school for kindergarten through fourth grade this school year.
Nohra said teachers in those grades will include at least one lesson a day that deals with group-learning and STEM problems.
He said all the elementary school teachers were trained at the beginning of the school year on how to teach “inquiry-based” STEM lessons.
By next year, Nohra said he hopes to send 10 to 15 of its ninth- and tenth-grade students to STEM+ME2, an academy opening next fall in the Youngstown area. The endeavor, initiated by the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, involves partner districts Austintown, Canfield, Jackson-Milton, Poland and Struthers, although the school will be open to students from all over Ohio.
Nohra said math and science scores have been down nationally since as early as 1995, adding that Struthers is not an exception to that trend.
He said it is a matter of “national priority” to increase STEM initiatives in the elementary- and middle-school levels.
“We need standards that are engaging to kids that will also land them jobs down the road,” Nohra said. “I think kids really enjoy STEM initiatives. Older kids are also realizing it’s where the job force is at.”