LATEST NEWS & INFO Category: Parents

Think back:  Did your elementary school librarian wear a chicken hat and Chuck Taylors in the building? Did he or she dress up as a cartoon scientist? Dance to vinyl Elvis records? Perform a storybook while reading it aloud? No? Well, the librarian at Summit Road STEM Elementary School does all that — and much, much more. And, she has written a delightful, insightful and heartfelt book about her purposeful antics and the unexpected reactions of her young students. In […]

April 13, 2018 update: We will be notifying the winners of our 2018 contest on Monday, May 14th.  Students of all ages encounter problems every day. For our essay contest, we asked students at Ohio’s STEM schools to shine a light on how they can solve them. Over the past three weeks, we’ve already received student perspectives on issues like gun control, depression, homelessness, volunteerism, self-esteem, and deforestation. More are rolling in each day, all responding to the prompt below. […]

We believe student voice (and teacher voice) matters. Today, we’re trying out a new approach to amplify these stories. Click below to listen to this piece as a podcast and let us know what you think in the comments. “People aren’t being as heart-healthy as they should be,” explained eighth grader Mackensie Clark, “so we want people to get used to doing that so they will be heart-healthy, so they won’t have a heart attack or have a stroke.”  Mackensie is participating in our statewide design […]

Last year, more than 1,200 students across the State of Ohio worked in teams to develop solutions to the opioid crisis. In May 100 students gathered at Battelle for the Student Solutions Showcase, presenting their solutions to scientists, engineers, and state political leaders (see below). This year, we would like to present another challenge, Ohio Heart Health Design Challenge to be showcased week of May 14th at Battelle. (Read about last year’s showcase) When choosing a statewide design challenge, we […]

Free hands-on fun and learning for all ages is the goal of STEM in the Park. The eighth annual event, featuring interactive displays and activities, musical performances and lunch, runs from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. September 23 at the Perry Field House at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). To find out more, we contacted Susan Marie Stearns, assistant director of programming and development at the Northwest Ohio Center for Excellence in STEM Education at BGSU, which organizes the event: […]

OSLN sat down with Northwestern Local Schools’ superintendent and principals in West Salem, Ohio for a chat about rural STEM implementation. Their robust STEM programming draws hundreds of students from 13 area districts, open enrolling to take advantage of the unique opportunities afforded under the direction of Superintendent Layton. Elementary Principal Julie McCumber recalls when STEM was first introduced in the classroom. Teachers presented third graders with an open-ended problem to solve as part of a STEM-focused lesson. McCumber remembers […]

For more than 50 years, the Ohio Junior Science and Humanities Symposium has provided a competitive forum for the state’s budding young scientists to present the results of their research, with the chance to advance to national and international contests. The 54th edition of the Ohio symposium will be held March 15-17, 2017, at Bowling Green State University. To learn more about the event, and organizers’ efforts to recruit more minorities and girls to participate, we contacted the symposium’s regional […]

A new academic year can be an exciting time for some students and an anxious one for others. And, as the newness wears off, all kids can become bored with their classes. How can teachers — and parents — help their students maintain an eagerness to go to school and to learn? To provide some insight, we contacted counselor Lisa Hinkelman, founder and executive director of the Dublin, Ohio-based girls’ empowerment program Ruling Our eXperiences and author of “Girls Without […]

One of the most frequent questions we receive is “How do I find opportunities for STEM outside of the class day?” The national eCYBERMISSION program can be a great answer. The program’s open for student teams now, but the deadline is approaching. For a quick overview, we reached out to Kathleen Kelly, Project Manager for eCYBERMISSION at the National Science Teachers Association. Read our chat below. To hear about the program from a student’s eye, read our July interview with Ashton Cofer, a […]

Ohio is facing a major opioid overdose crisis. Nearly seven Ohioans a day are lost in heroin and opioid-related deaths.1 Many schools have dealt with the fallout from this crisis. Today, we’re announcing a push to do more. This year, many of our schools will plan and implement design challenges on understanding and eliminating Ohio’s opioid crisis. What’s a design challenge? It’s a long term project where students learn their content by creating a new solution to a real-world problem. Design challenges offer […]