STEM Center receives $12,000 in grants

STEM Center receives $12,000 in grants

Henderson State University’s STEM Center has been awarded more than $12,000 in grant funds to provide instructional support for teachers and host a girls’ leadership conference to promote STEM careers.

A $7,708 grant from the Department of Higher Education, The Common Sense of the Common Core, will help fund a summer institute to help teachers of grades 6-8 design units for topics such as number systems, proportional reasoning, geometric measurement, sampling and statistics, and integers and rational numbers.

Teachers may attend the institute for either professional development or graduate credit, said Betty Ramsey, STEM Center director. All teachers will receive $350 worth of equipment for the classrooms.

A Girls Leadership Conference in STEM on April 25 is funded by a $4,605 grant from the Arkansas STEM Coalition. The conference targets girls in grades 10-12, college freshmen and sophomores to inform them about STEM careers.

The students will attend four workshops led by women working in STEM careers, including fisheries pathologist, biology professor, engineering, and dietetics. Each workshop will feature interactive activities.

The STEM Center at Henderson State promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education to P-16 teachers by providing research and standards-based professional development, curriculum alignment assistance, and assessment support for mathematics and science teachers. Through these methods, mathematics and science teachers will become inquiry-style instructors, will center lessons on critical thinking and problem solving, and all students will become mathematical and scientifically literate.

For more information about the grants or the STEM Center, contact Ramsey at 870-230-5417 or Ramseyb@hsu.edu.