Engaging Students in STEM: Project Materials, Courses, and Recognition

Collection description:
This collection from by Northwestern Connecticut Community College (NCCC) provides information on NCCC's Engaging Students From Classrooms and Camps to College and Advanced Technological Careers project. This project aimed to increase the STEM interest and skills attainment of underrepresented and socioeconomically disadvantaged students in the Torrington School District. To do this, NCCC partnered with Torrington High School to provide teachers with support and professional development training, externships in industry, and materials and funds needed to implement technical lessons into classroom instruction. This collection features material from and about the project and its accomplishments.

Collection contents:
Collection materials include a video introducing NCCC's project, a list of Torrington High School classes created or funded by the project, a press release announcing the winners of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) poster competition, two press releases, and two presentations discussing the project and efforts to introduce high school students to technical careers.

The video introduces the Engaging Students From Classrooms and Camps to College and Advanced Technological Careers project, discussing its goals and impacts on students and professors. The video runs 2:58 minutes in length and was created as a submission for STEM for ALL.

The 6-page list includes Torrington High School science and technology courses that received grant support from the NCCC project. Each class features a description, prerequisites, and grade level. Throughout the project eight new courses were added and additional eight courses were enhanced with technical units. Additionally, three courses were added as dual enrollment courses.

One press release announces the three winners of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) poster competition, which includes two Torrington High School students who did research as a part of the NCCC project.

The other press release discusses the poster presentation put on by three NCCC students at the National Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) Symposium. The press release goes into detail on the students' poster, their in-class work with bacteriophages, and the impact of course-embedded research projects.

The Building a Technology Education Pipeline presentation provides a brief introduction to the NCCC project and highlights examples of involving high school students in technical education. Discussed are examples such as a job fair, experience college day, and summer experience STEM week. This presentation was presented at Hi Tec 2019.

The Engaging Community College and High School Students in Research, Service, and Real-World Experiences presentation includes various examples of project-based learning developed from the NCCC project. Featured are examples in disciplines such as construction technology, soldering, and drones.

For orientation purposes Presentation for HI TEC 2019.pdf is included as a separate attachment and offers a sample of the type of material included in this collection.

Below is a list of the files contained within the .zip attachment. The size of each file is included in parenthesis.

Project materials (6 files, 224 MB)

• Engaging Students From Classrooms and Camps to College and Advanced Technological Careers (C4 ProjectVideo_3.mp4 217 MB)
• Torrington High School Science and Technology Courses that received Grant Support (High School Technology Courses.pdf 86.7 KB)
• NABT Highlights Student Researchers at CESR Poster Session (NABT Announcement of Students Winning 3rd Place in the Poster Competition.pdf 819 KB)
• Building a Technology Education Pipeline (Presentation for HI TEC 2019.pdf 3.97 MB)
• Engaging Community College and High School Students iN Research, Service, and Real-World Experiences (Engaging Community College and High School Students in Research Service and Real World Experiences.pdf 1.7 MB)
• CT State Northwestern Students Present at the National SEAPHAGES Symposium (Press Release Northwestern Seaphages Student Project.pdf 243 KB)