GEAR UP promotes STEM learning in Greensboro
GREENSBORO, NC (WGHP) —STEM learning can be fun and exciting. That's what the students at Jackson Middle School are learning firsthand through a program called GEAR UP.
Meagan Flowers is the GEAR UP Community Coordinator. She says it is important for students to understand there is a world of opportunity beyond their classrooms.
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"Gaining early awareness and readiness for undergraduate programs. It is a federal funded grant where again we aim to increase the success of students in post-secondary education," says Flowers. "We are operational right now in 10 schools here in Guilford County and we really target middle and high school students to start thinking about post-secondary planning, creating a college going culture, providing resources, enrichment and support to students and families."
Through a partnership with BetaBox Learning, the students are getting valuable hands-on STEM learning that could spark an interest in their futures.
Says Flowers, "We want them to get outside of the regular 4 walls of their classroom to have experiences like this so that it will spark an interest to start thinking about what's going to happen when they get to high school, what's going to happen after high school and hopefully moments like this will encourage them to stay on the path for success."
But to do that she knows the students can't get complacent.
"Things that are challenging. Things that are also fun. Things that can get their hands in, get on there. Interactive and engaging. I love watching them today work in small groups with each other, so it's almost like that peer-to-peer mentoring type deal and they get a chance to fly a drone and build a robot and that's fun," she says.
Gear Up is a year-round program that is growing.
According to Flowers "We just added sophomores' grade 10 to our cohort. So we are excited about where this program is going and we are really excited about where our scholars are going to end up by the support and enrichment of our program."
The principal at Jackson Middle, Lashonti Adeleke says she thinks great things to come from this program for her students and school.
"This is extremely important for our students," she says. "Just being able to show them the importance of learning and how it connects to real life, giving them some hands on experience, teaching them how to think, how to connect and make sense of things is what I'm seeing the most of even in following the instructions on how to code what to tell your coding so just to experience the smiles on their faces, the joy. It's just extremely important."
And she says the future holds lots of promise.
"There are opportunities that Guilford County is providing for students to be able to incorporate this into the daily lives of our students, where they're able to choose a path that they would like to take, whether it be gaming. Whether it's cybersecurity or any of those opportunities and so the district is doing a great job about that right now about providing that for schools. And then our students are able to do things like this every day and all day, not just one or two days out of the week."
For now, students are racing to win, and flying high to learn all things STEM.
