Category: Workgroup News

Advanced STEM Courses Workgroup continues to expand offerings

The Advanced STEM Courses workgroup, in partnership with Baltimore City Public Schools and The University of Baltimore’s Office of Early College Initiatives, is offering college-level courses to nearly 150 students for the Fall 2021 semester. STEM courses include Introduction to Statistics, College Algebra, and Computer Programming; partner schools include Benjamin Franklin HS, Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, Green Street Academy, Western HS, Baltimore Design School, Digital Harbor HS, and PORT Virtual Learning Program. Students have the opportunity to earn college credit and high school credit before they graduate from high school.


Math Dual Enrollment Offerings Continue to Expand

The University of Baltimore’s Early College Initiatives (ECI), in partnership with BmoreSTEM’s Math Workgroup, has expanded its Dual Enrollment offerings in math to City Schools for the Fall 2020 semester. ECI is offering Introduction to Statistics, worth 3 college credits and 4th year high school math credit, to cohorts at Benjamin Franklin HS, Green St. Academy, Western HS, Baltimore Design School, Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, and Digital Harbor HS. All courses are fully online. In total, over 150 students are enrolled in UB Dual Enrollment courses in either Math or Writing this semester.


Let’s Celebrate Students’ Achievements at the JHU Robotics Tournament

Robotics is a fun and engaging way for students to learn more about engineering and cultivate skills that are important in the workplace.  Baltimore City Public School students competed in a robotics tournament at Johns Hopkins University.

 

Delali's presenstation inspired students to consider a career in STEM. Watch the video of this presentation and browse the slide deck for this presentation.


Candace Givens Shares Why You Should Pursue the Career You Want

Listen to Candance Givens compelling story.  She shares her journey to become an Electrical Engineer and then to go on to become a Vice President for a leading defense contractor locally.  Candace encourages high school students attending a robotics tournament at the Historic Cherry Hill Elementary / Middle School in Baltimore City.


STEM Expanded Learning Database Workgroup Launched

We are happy to announce the formation of our next workgroup, the STEM Learning Database workgroup. Expanded learning refers to opportunities for students after-school, over the summer, and/or at STEM-rich institutions (e.g., museums, zoo, science center)

The new workgroup will support schools and community groups who need additional information when building STEM partnerships. The workgroup will consider criteria for high-quality STEM expanded learning programming and collaborate with existing initiatives to catalog and build matchmaking resources for school and community partnerships.

Please contact Ellie Mictchell or Dawn Shirley by email at [email protected] if you are interested in playing a key role.


Middle Schoolers Hear about Engineering Careers

At the Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School VEX robotics tournament, members of robotics teams took time out to learn about what it is like to become an engineer in Maryland. Mike Hinkey and William Redmond shared their first hand experiences with the youth.

For further information, view any of these videos

 

This presentation is an outgrowth of the work of the BmoreSTEM Effective STEM Mentoring Opportunities workgroup.  BmoreSTEM is looking for more presenters, especially for:

  • Medical
  • Engineering in a Non-defense industry
  • Advanced Manufactoring
  • Computing
  • Cyber
  • Computer Gaming
  • Finance/Business/Accounting
  • Data Analytics
  • Research
  • Education

Share Your Career

BmoreSTEM is looking for STEM professionals to present about their careers. We will videotape the presentations if desired, but other forms of presentation are welcomed as well.




Volunteer Now


Alternate Spring Break Opportunity to Encourage College Students to Consider Teaching STEM

The STEM Teacher Recruitment Workgroup will pilot an alternative spring break, ASB, experience for undergraduate STEM majors from Johns Hopkins, Morgan State and Notre Dame Universities the week of March 16, 2020.  The goal of this experience is to expose current undergraduate students to STEM classrooms in Baltimore City to encourage these students to consider teaching as a career option while serving their local community.  Participants will include:

  • Post-secondary undergraduates who will co-teach with a STEM teacher during their college/university spring break.  Students can be freshmen – seniors.  The team will work to ensure that freshmen, if selected, are very mature and placed with an appropriate grade level based on their age and maturity.  
  • Baltimore City Secondary STEM teachers including computer science (grades 7-12).

​

So far two middle schools and one high school have agreed to provide teachers to participate as mentors for undergraduate students. Our goal is to place 5 students with 5 teachers in the pilot year.  We are in the process of applying for approval to award CPD units to participating teachers.  Teachers would be required to attend a training and reflection meetings, participate in collaborative planning with an assigned undergraduate student and host the student in their science classroom for the week of March 16th, 2020.


Baltimore City Robotics Programs Continue to Expand

Team Growth Over TIme Bar Chart

Number of Programs

    • Increase in total number of programs
      • 2013-14: 38 programs
      • 2014-15: 62 programs
      • 2015-16: 82 programs
      • 2016-17: 79 programs
      • 2017-18: 72 programs
      • 2018-19: 82 programs
      • 2019-20: 95 programs

Baltimore City Public Schools remains a large percentage of Maryland programs:

  • 53/146 (36.3%) of registered Maryland VEX IQ teams are from Baltimore City up from 44/158 (27.8%) from December 2018
  • 37/180 (20.5%) of registered Maryland VEX teams are from Baltimore City up from (18.7%) from December 2018

 

Year\Program FLL FLL Jr. FRC VEX VEX IQ Grand Total
2013-14 14   2 22   38
2014-15 25   1 36   62
2015-16 26 9 1 24 22 82
2016-17 22 13 1 26 17 79
2017-18 16 15 1 21 19 72
2018-19 18 15 1 26 22 82
2019-20 22 18* 1 23 31 95
Grand Total 143 70 8 178 111 510

*Projected

Number of Teams

  • Increase in the number of teams
    • 2013-14: 58 teams
    • 2014-15: 91 teams
    • 2015-16: 89 teams
    • 2016-17: 112 teams
    • 2017-18: 110 teams
    • 2018-19: 127 teams
    • 2019-20: 140 teams

 

Year\Program FLL FLL Jr. FRC VEX VEX IQ Grand Total
2013-14 15   2 41   58
2014-15 26   1 64   91
2015-16 22 7 1 34 25 89
2016-17 24 13 1 47 27 112
2017-18 19 20 1 35 35 110
2018-19 19 20 1 44 43 127
2019-20 24 22* 1 37 56 140
Grand Total 149 82 8 302 185 587

*Projected

 

Number of New Programs

    • Increase in number of new programs each year, but declines in 2016-17.
      • 2013-14: 16 of 38 programs are new (42.1%)
      • 2014-15: 38 of 62 programs are new (61.3%)
      • 2015-16: 49 of 82 programs are new (59.8%)
      • 2016-17: 31 of 79 programs are new (39.2%)
      • 2017-18: 30 of 72 programs are new (41.7%)
      • 2018-19: 33 of 82 programs are new (40.2%)
      • 2019-20: at least 30 new programs

 

Year\Coaching Status New Veteran Veteran Coach and School, New Program Grand Total
2013-14 16 22   38
2014-15 38 22 2 62
2015-16 49 28 5 82
2016-17 31 47 1 79
2017-18 30 40 2 72
2018-19 33 49   82
Grand Total 197 208 10 415

2018-19 Robotics Statistics (As of October 2019)


Half of Eligible Schools in Baltimore Participated in Curriculum-Embedded STEM Experiences

Icon

70 eligible schools, or 50% of all eligible schools, either applied for transportation funds or was connected  with the attraction through our program.

These schools took 101 field trips aligned to curriculum in STEM for grades 1-8.

icon of students

These trips provided amazing student learning experiences for nearly 4,000 Baltimore City students.

Map

Coverage Map for Baltimore City Curriculum-Embedded STEM Experiences