A partnership between Covington Catholic High School and Blessed Sacrament School is creating a STEM outreach program to expose the younger generation to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The program, “Project Lead The Way,” will be piloted at Blessed Sacrament with the intention to spread to all the Notre Dame and Covington Catholic feeder schools, which are St. Agnes School, St. Joseph School in Crescent Springs, St. Pius and Prince of Peace. The program will be offered to 7th and 8th graders at Blessed Sacrament with the classes “Design and Modeling” and “Automation and Robotics” to introduce younger students to the world of STEM before high school.
“These kids will be able to see all the different components that are involved in STEM,” Blessed Sacrament STEM Teacher Emily Bradley said. “A lot of kids these days are kinesthetic learners; they’re stimulated all the time. So, I think the more hands-on learning that they can get through a program like this, the more they’ll realize that that’s something that they’re able to do.”
The idea for the program was introduced when a Covington Catholic graduate wanted to do something for the school for their 50th reunion. Covington Catholic STEM teacher Bob Lind said the alumnus is heavily involved in STEM-based work and wanted to encourage young students to pursue STEM education. They are an anonymous donor.
“We have found that once the kids get in there and actually are involved in the program, they love it, and they find a passion for it, especially my girls, and that was a big thing about this program as well is that we wanted the girls to be able to have a passion for it.” – Emily Bradley
The project will hire a teacher to be trained in Project Lead The Way curriculum at the middle school level. They will coordinate with each school to help get their programs up and running. The donor will provide the money for the needed materials, and programs will be responsible for providing a teacher at their school and space to hold the classes.
The program is piloting at Blessed Sacrament because the school already has a STEM space created in 2020. Bradley said she contacted Lind last year to see how she could prep her students for high school STEM classes. They are all electives, and Bradley said she didn’t want her students to be intimidated to go into the classes just because they were unfamiliar with the curriculum.
“We have found that once the kids get in there and actually are involved in the program, they love it, and they find a passion for it, especially my girls, and that was a big thing about this program as well is that we wanted the girls to be able to have a passion for it,” Bradley said. “So that’s why we wanted to partner with Notre Dame as well because we didn’t want the girls to see ‘CovCath’ and think it was just a program for boys.”
Bradley said she asked to be involved as a teacher in the program to be a female presence in the room for the girls.
“Through engaging activities like hands-on science demonstrations, STEM career fairs and summer camps, we aim to provide feeder school students with exposure to diverse STEM fields,” Notre Dame Academy President Trish Miller said. “Our commitment to this STEM Outreach Program ensures that every aspiring student, regardless of background, can access quality STEM education.”
With STEM programs already at the high school level, Lind said the partnership could also involve outreach opportunities by bringing students from the high school to demonstrate their work or provide mentorship.
“We’re just looking at what are ways that we can use our people and experience to help the schools get that started,” he said.
Miller echoed that sentiment.
“There are several ways in which the NDA and CCH students will benefit from participating in this STEM outreach program, including the development of leadership and communication skills, exposure to mentorship roles, teamwork and collaboration skills, as well as an opportunity for personal growth,” Miller said.
At Covington Catholic, Lind said students in the STEM programs are getting their hands down and making things, bringing the concepts to reality, something he said is happening daily.
Lind and Bradley said the program teaches students foundational skills they can use across any career of interest. They learn problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration. Bradley said that having the kids work together to solve a problem is the primary goal of the STEM program.
“Taking an idea and actually bringing it to life, not just studying it and taking a test on it but creating a prototype and testing that prototype and making it better,” she said. “I think that’s a really important skill that this program is going to teach kids.”
An example of the kind of projects going on at Covington Catholic, Lind said, is one where students make and test their own puzzle cube.
The students learn to use dial calipers, measure the pieces, and sort through the good and bad ones. Then, they sketch, design, and make three-dimensional Tetris-like pieces in a three-dimensional modeling program and print them out. They build the puzzle cubes by sanding and gluing them together, and lastly, they must run tests with friends and families to see how long it takes to solve them and run a statistical analysis to see if it is a good puzzle.
“A lot of people think it’s just going to be all programming and building mechanisms and stuff, but it really brings out this creative side in the kids,” Lind said. “It taps into the artistic skills of them and that desire to want to build and make.”
Lind said the classes students take, such as robotics at Covington Catholic, also help boost their confidence.
The students who compete must go in front of a panel of judges, without a teacher, and present to them, explaining their build, the purpose of it, everyone’s roles in the project, etc.
“They come out, and they are so confident after all that,” Lind said.
Lind said the program also shows students that they don’t have to go to a typical four-year degree program post-graduation. He said they have had students go into welding, fabrication, diesel mechanics, carpentry, etc.
“So many people forever were saying you have to have a four-year degree, and we’re saying no, there’s a lot of ways that you can have meaningful employment and contribute to society, right?” Lind said. “You don’t have to have a four-year degree for it. Let’s find what is the best path for you.”
Bradley said the hands-on learning portion of the STEM program shows students that.
Project Lead The Way will officially begin at Blessed Sacrament in the 2024-2025 school year, and they hope to have all the other schools involved over the next three years.
