Webinar Mission Statement

Being raised in a very STEM-centric family, I began to realize the importance of STEM at an early age from spending time with my parents during school breaks. My mother is a professor of electrical engineering at Georgia Tech and my father is a civil engineer who works for Georgia Power. I played around with Scratch and small robots when I was very young, spending a lot of time at Georgia Tech. What we, humans, can create fascinates me. I

You are holding innovative PCS Edventures camp curriculum! PCS Edventures promotes hands-on, activity based learning as a means of helping students develop the foundations of scientific inquiry, engineering design principles and technological literacy while exercising problem-solving, communication, reflection and collaboration skills. Our content is designed to integrate instructional goals into application-based learning experiences. With the freedom to experiment and design, students gain the tangible benefits that come from frequent analysis and reflection.

A challenging new opportunity presented itself as Pat became the STEM instructor for Davidson County’s newest, most innovative middle school, Oak Grove. While she Incorporated her passion for driving students to reach their maximum potential, Pat became a leader in the teaching community as a sponsor for the the EXCEL (encourage, excellence, character, enthusiasm and leadership) group on our PBIS team, one of our school’s sponsors for the Robotics Team, and individually promoted numerous school fundraisers throughout the entire school

For sharing in our vision of accelerating education across the globe, we at PCS Edventures would like to cordially invite you to attend

In our ever evolving society we seem to be having a greater affinity to technical jobs and careers more integrated with our technology. It appears that we are heading into a world of Science, Technology , Engineering, and Mathematics or STEM. The STEM fields that are rapidly increasing relate to jobs that deal quite a bit with our newer technology and the creation and development of new and more efficient technologies. To compliment this increase in STEM careers, we need to focus our time, energy, and most of all capital on the lackluster STEM program in our school systems.

STEM drives the world. It sparks change (Science), drives innovation (Technology), provides jobs (Engineering), makes us think (Mathematics), and puts us where we are, as the most advanced species on Earth, and possibly even in the Milky Way. The STEM Academy at Landstown High is one of the few advanced academies preparing students for the 21st Century, to go forth and explore more science, create and shape new technologies, engineer new wonders, and think and ponder it all, advancing the human race. I would like to apply to the STEM Academy because I would like to be a part of this innovation, and I hope to gain new hands-on experience which only this academy offers bountifully.

Exploration and analysis have been the essence of my life, guiding me through the most mystifying predicaments. In this ever changing world of engineering & technology where each new day sees a spate of new concepts and applications and each passing day makes them obsolete, I always wanted to attain the highest level of excellence in education and transcend new horizons in the chosen field.

Constantly growing and consistently in high demand, careers in STEM (an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are attractive for many prospective students. My own personal interest lies in the field of computer engineering, which is categorized as a STEM career and reaps the benefits of such a classification. The field of computer engineering requires relatively modest education, but still rewards employees with a comfortable life, numerous benefits, and personal fulfillment.

Given the cumulative negative effects of summer learning loss, what can educators, administrators, and parents

The summer is like a black hole for the knowledge students learned the previous school year. The National Associations for Year-Round Education, Executive director, David Hornak, argues that the learning students lose over the summer when compounded over their school career can be equal to a year or a year and a half of learning loss by the time the student is entering high

“More kids will have learning loss than others.” That is why we have school so we can learn the same stuff. We will get learning loss because we will learn to much stuff.When kids go to summer break they will have learning loss but they will learn that stuff again in the next year. When kids have all the vacations they might as well just have a summer break.(EDU leadership removing school year round schooling.) “We found that students in year- round schools learn more during the summer, when others are on vacation, but they seem to learn less than others children during the rest of the year,”.(Von Hippel 2007)

During the summer an equivalent of one month of overall learning is lost. By the end of sixth-grade students that experienced learning loss are an average of two years behind their peers. One of the educational topics under discussion addresses whether or not students should attend school year round with only a month off during the summer. Year-round schooling is beneficial because students retain more information, have frequent breaks to recharge, and will advance quicker.

Summer learning loss is a well-documented occurrence. Studies dating as far back as 1906 have recorded decreases in achievement Spring to Fall (Blazer, 2011; Smith & Brewer, 2007). Because of the 9-10 month school year in most of the US, the break in instruction leads to forgetting and requires significant review upon returning to school in the fall (Cooper, 2003). Loss has been recorded for both math and reading with math loss being more pronounced than reading. Math has shown an average of about 1 month of loss of instruction. Although math has a bigger loss over the summer months, there does not seem to be any differences across socioeconomic levels. Additionally across both math and reading, gender and IQ do not appear to influence summer

Our partnership has supported the facilitation of one-day STEM innovation camps, which have provided real life technology based business challenges for the students to tackle with our employee volunteers. Over 900 students and 70 employees in Italy, Spain, South Africa, France, Sweden and the UK have all had the chance to participate in these forward-thinking innovation camps.

ANU Science Communication & Marketing was preparing to launch a brand new project called ‘12 Ideas that will change the world’ to promote PhD research to potential new students, and policy makers. It is a project that one PhD student from each research school will be selected for a photo gallery or videos exploring the ways that PhD research can make a difference to the world. The main objective of this project was to attract future research students and make them excited about ANU STEM research. A secondary objective was to join the race with other global high ranking universities who are promoting their research through various strategies and engaging global talents. The long term objective was to get more students to enroll in STEM degrees at the ANU that will help ANU