April 17, 2012 - Educators spend a lot time these days talking about how schools must teach students to become skillful problem solvers, critical thinkers and effective communicators.
This week, dozens of students from schools across North Carolina showed how that theory is being put into practice. The students, participants in the 5th annual Student STEM Symposium, presented projects they developed this year to their peers, then a number of them tightened their ties and smoothed their hair to present to grown-ups attending the Scaling STEM conference that followed.
A tough crowd, but the students never stumbled.
From Durham's City of Medicine Academy, a team of students conceived a fictional city from the rubble of another to create a more modern, enjoyable, eco-friendly environment. They developed a plan for alternative energy sources, energy-efficient housing, public transportation and new industry based on the development of fashion, cosmetics and art.
Students from Warren New Tech High School considered every possible detail in their exhaustive plan for an environmentally friendly theme park for Warren County, The Green Kingdom. The project involved the entire school for much of the year and also drew on community involvement as well, from the Warren County Economic Development Commission and chamber of commerce to the Halifax Electric Membership Corporation. Students engineered amusement rides, drawing on the expertise of a Disney designer from Warren County, developed a full-blown financial plan and assembled an application for a conditional use permit from the county that considered traffic, noise, parking and economic benefits.
The project has been chosen as a finalist in a competition among schools within the national New Tech Network.
At Early College EAST in Havelock, students developed a residential water management system to conserve water by using rainwater collected from a home's roof. No simple cistern, though, the students' design, dubbed Hydropal, uses sophisticated controls to adjust flows and reuse grey water for irrigation. The project is anything but fantasy: In devising their "solution," the students weighed such considerations as affordability, ease of use, efficiency and the capacity for recycling and reuse.
Other schools presenting were Anson New Tech High School, Avery STEM Academy and the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics.
