BY NANCY SHARER
ORWELL TOWNSHIP - Just think!
Actually, that's the point of the new after-school ThinkSTEM program at Northeast Bradford High School. It aims to build grades, build teamwork â¦and build minds.
"Yes!" Northeast teacher Becky Folk cries. On a recent afternoon she, some other teachers and close to 20 ThinkSTEM students work around tables in a classroom, the youngsters building little plastic vehicles.
Folk high-fives a student. Something's worked out just right.
At a nearby table, three boys work on a dune buggy-like car. "Another one?" a boy asks a friend. His buddy's putting green bars on the front to make something like bumpers.
ThinkSTEM came from the state STEM initiative. "STEM" stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering, Math" and the program promotes student excellence in those fields through hands-on projects.
According to one of the ThinkSTEM Web sites: "ThinkSTEM is an afterschool program dedicated to preparing sixth-eighth-grade students in the Athens, Northeast Bradford, Sayre and Towanda school districts for careers" in those areas.
"ThinkSTEM will operate a three-hour-per-day, four-day-per-week enrichment program that is free to any student from the participating school districts. â¦
"The element necessary to transform information into knowledge (the 'evidence' of learning) is thinking.
When a person is aware of the way they think they're able to consistently apply their thinking skills to any situation, thereby making efficient use of those skills and enhancing the depth of their learning. â¦"
"ThinkSTEM is supported by a grant from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers and the Pennsylvania Department of Education," according to a site.
Locally, BLaST Intermediate Unit 17 has brought ThinkSTEM to this area. It began in October 2012 at Sheshequin-Ulster Elementary School.
Northeast students were participating there. But the long trip to and from Ulster meant they didn't get home until 7 p.m. or later, according to Superintendent Heather McPherson. "It was too much."
So BLaST helped Northeast set up its own ThinkSTEM for its students, a sort of spinoff from Ulster's.
Mike Burgett serves as facilitator at Northeast, and Heather Manchester is site director there and at Ulster. Folk is also a Northeast facilitator.
"It really allows kids to develop their thinking in schools in relation to STEM projects," Manchester explains.
The superintendent is pleased. "I know it's going to grow," she says. "Look what these guys are doing!"
What they're doing right now is nothing short of automotive engineering. Working in teams of two or three, they're using K'NEX (a brand of children's building materials) and little motors to make little vehicles that can move and go over obstacles.
And if they can imagine it - they can build it. All the vehicles turn out differently: one looks sort of like a long drag-racer, others are small. Another's like a Civil War cannon. Then there's the "dune buggy," and a roofless - but tough - little model. One even looks like a wide Ferris wheel.
April 15, they and the Ulster teams will have a K'NEX contest, with the top two teams going on to a competition in Harrisburg in May.
After the K'NEX phase ends, youngsters will move on to projects focusing on things like software and wind.
This afternoon, the kids are caught up in the moment. They're active, excited, hovering over their machines like master craftsmen. They're plunging right in.
"It's awesome!" sixth-grader Katlynn Haas says of ThinkSTEM. "You learn more after school."
Seventh-grader Garrett Brown shows his vehicle, the "Ferris wheel." "It's kind of like environmental," he explains. In theory, people would sit inside on what he calls "gyroscopic" seats, and the wheel would move on momentum once it started.
Jacob Keir, Dylan Brown and Justin Billings work on the "dune buggy." It has big black wheels, lime green "roll bars," and yellow and white pinwheel-like doo-dads on the frame. Dylan works on the rear driver-side corner; Justin pokes his hand down into the frame to get at something. Jacob rests his arms on the table and studies it all.
The next table over, Carter Johnson, Cody Miller and Dylan Russell made a four-wheel-drive with independent suspension. It can rumble over a box lid. It can crawl over the side of a shoe.
"Pretty darn cool!" McPherson pronounces it.
ThinkSTEM and the Northeast Bradford Education Foundation paid for the K'NEX kits.
Even though ThinkSTEM focuses on science- and math-related topics, Manchester believes students with other interests can enjoy it, too. In the K'NEX contest, for example, students also will have to develop blueprints, narratives and presentations to go with their vehicles, projects some students might especially like. "This is such a wide range," she says.
Folk is alongside the kids at their tables today, guiding but not telling them what to do. Rather, she asks questions about their cars and vehicles in general to make them ⦠well, think.
"I like it because it's student-driven, student-learning," she says. "They decide how they're going to do it."
What does Burgett like best about ThinkSTEM? One word "thinking."
In regular classes, students are taught but might not have the chance to think. Here it's different.
"You can see the excitement," he says. "There's no fear of failure here."
Students don't have to attend ThinkSTEM every day - they can take breaks for sports or music lessons, for example. There is no fee and no grade-point-average requirement - anyone in grades six through eight can join.
If more kids want to sign up, "we'll make room," McPherson states. "We're going to make this happen!"
What would she tell people about ThinkSTEM? Probably that it's all about discovering and learning. And thinking.
"And all they would have to do is watch these guys and see how exciting this is," she says.
"This is what it's all about."
It's all about kids like Stacey Bailey. What does the sixth-grader like about ThinkSTEM? She says one thing. â¦
"I enjoy thinking."