NCSSM boosts STEM with support from Dogwood Health Trust grant

More than 60 students from 18 Western North Carolina counties – including seven from Burke – spent a week immersed in hands-on learning, thanks to a grant from the Dogwood Health Trust.

Dogwood Health Trust (DHT) awarded a $1 million grant to the North Carolina School of Science and Math (NCSSM), which is used part of those dollars to fund a week-long Summer Accelerator program to boost STEM education in the region. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math.  

The residential program was designated for rising seventh to ninth graders and rising 10th to 12th grade. 

Jane Hovis, rising eighth grader at Morganton Day School, expressed her desire to attend NCSSM-Morganton in the future.

“I’ve wanted to come here since fifth grade,” Hovis said. 

The summer program consisted of four STEM courses that target robotics and coding for smart manufacturing, the effects of urbanization on water quality to address environmental impact, medical research to highlight the health fields, and exposure to criminal justice.

Outside of class, students also engaged in activities such as outdoor games, swimming, rocketry, ice cream socials, glider challenges, water balloons, art classes, roller skating, and a Hickory Crawdads game.

“It’s been one of the most spectacular programs. We’re bringing kids who aren’t normally going to go to a summer STEM experience that deserve that opportunity. It’s been a good week, a great way to end the summer,” said Gina Barrier, director of summer programs.

The summer accelerator program featured four courses: 

• Design, Build, Code

• Urbanization and Water Quality 

• Criminal Investigations Lab

• Bio Bacteria Investigations

Isabella Guillen, rising 10th grader at Freedom High School, took the Crime Scene Investigations Lab, which gave students the opportunity to analyze cold-case files and solve unsolved murder mysteries.

“I like how the program is organized. My favorite was the shoe lab. We got to step our feet into kinetic sand and take a mold of it,” Isabella said. “We’ve done a lot of fun stuff.” 

Students in Michael Slaughter’s urbanization class visited South Mountains and Hunting Creek Preserve to sample water and analyze the differences in how urbanization and construction affects water quality.

Tin Hei Chan, rising senior at Patton High School, raved about the experiments in the Bio Bacteria Investigations course. Students uncovered the intricacies of bacteria, DNA analysis, and bioluminescence.

“We did experiments with DNA to see how people on crime scenes figure out how to match DNA. I think that is very interesting,” Chan said.  

In the Design, Build, Code class taught by Blaire Miller, a team of four students created an underwater cave-themed obstacle course designed for their personal coded robots. The students printed a 3D tunnel for the robot to move through.

“It’s a lot different than school. It’s more hands-on projects and I really like that,” said Clara Baugess, student at Fairview Elementary in Sylva.

Georgia Girty, student at Cherokee Central, designed 175 animations for her robot.

“I want to come again next year,” said Ryder Mitchell, rising eighth grader at Ranger Elementary in Cherokee County. “The craziest part is how many people probably applied and there’s only so many of us that got in out of 18 counties; it was more fun than I expected.”