Offers Summer STEM Opportunity To Middle-School Aged Youth

Fleet Readiness Center East teamed with the Boys and Girls Club to offer middle school-age youths a unique opportunity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education during summer break. The organization’s Research and Engineering Group hosted 12 youth July 16-20 for its first STEM camp at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

“We’re always looking for new ways to interact with our local community in terms of education outreach and trying to get kids excited about STEM and maybe encourage them to seek careers that are geared towards what we do here at FRC East,” said Randall Lewis, AIR-4.0 Innovation Lab lead.

Boys and Girls Club regional administrators sought out FRC East for partnership opportunities on the way to accomplishing a core tenet of its mission — ensuring academic success for its members — and in the interest of building relations with the Cherry Point community.

Dre’ Nix, Boys and Girls Club Coastal Plain Region III vice president, said it was a program initiative to strengthen the relationship of the club with the military base for the development of its members. “The future for our kids is technology, STEM and those things,” she said, explaining the work the Initiative Development Director Julie Carey did of reaching out to FRC East in hopes of getting time in the (mobile Fabrication Lab) during the school break. “We jumped at the opportunity to do something in the summer for our kids.”

Lewis said, “The purpose was to have a first interaction with them, and get to know their kids and get to know how they do things, and try to align our vision for STEM and their vision for their kids and their programs and try to make that work.

“It’s an experience that’s going to impact them and they’re going to get exposed to things that they may never get to see,” Lewis added.

Many of the participants said they were eager to participate in the camp when the opportunity was presented in the local Havelock club. Rising seventh-grader Elana Krupey said she immediately got her father’s permission to sign up. She said she wants to be an engineer when she grows up and that she has had the desire since the third grade. “I want to learn more about engineering, so I would know what to do when I probably get the job,” she said, explaining why she wanted to take part in the camp.

Amy Ramirez Gomez, also bound for the seventh grade, said her brother signed her up at once, “because he knows I like creating things.”

Kordell Means said he knew he wanted to be “some kind of an engineer,” and after shadowing an engineer on the second day, he cemented his hopes on “computer engineer.”

Rising eighth grader Tyree Mueller said he participated to boost his knowledge base with the hope of using any acquired skills elsewhere or to teach others. “I wanted to know what it was like to build something new and actually learn how to do it, and that way I could do it at home or teach other people,” said Mueller, who said he has a knack for technology.

The group worked throughout the week, supervised by several engineers, to complete an underwater glider robot project — SeaGlide. The campers had to do computer programming, engineering design, computer-aided drafting and soldering, use various hand tools, and do some testing and troubleshooting to complete the project.

Also during the week, the camp administrators presented various engineering tests to challenge campers’ critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. The week’s agenda also included tours of FRC East, 2nd Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion and Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training; and job shadowing of engineers and artisans. “They got to learn about STEM and some interesting topics, but they also got to learn about the community here on base, and some things that are in their backyards that they didn’t really know about,” said Lewis.

Lewis said the camp was a success, but administrators plan to make some adjustments in the agenda to customize the curriculum to the age group.

(Image provided with NAVAIR news release)

FMI: www.navair.navy.mil