INNOVATOR | Student entrepreneurs win prize, STEM conference brings big announcement

April 22, 2015

Student-led innovation tied to skills, creativity

A team of freshmen from Johnston County Early College Academy won the $2,000 first prize in the 2015 Innovation Challenge last Monday for their proposal to increase access to healthy foods at reduced cost. The student team from City of Medicine Academy was awarded $1,000 for second prize.

The winning team from Johnston County Early College Academy poses with NC New Schools President Tony Habit (left), Principal Brandon Garland (right), Cisco's Sanjay Pal (third from right), teacher Amanda Rowland (second from right) and contest judges.

The four Johnston County students -- Raul Cruz, Colin Garcia, Aaron Penny and Georgia Price -- presented their proposal to a panel of industry professionals on April 13 during a national STEM education conference held at the Sheraton Imperial in RTP. They competed against three other teams from their school along with teams from City of Medicine Academy (Durham), Edgecombe Early College, Wake STEM Early College and Yadkin Valley Regional Career Academy (Davidson).

The Innovation Challenge, developed by NC New Schools, HQ Raleigh and Cisco Systems, invited students in the NC New Schools network to propose creative, practical solutions to real problems related to food supply or healthy choices. This year's inaugural competition served as a pilot project and will be expanded next year.

Teams of four to six students used practical skills including research, teamwork and communication to develop their ideas for increasing healthy food availability or encouraging healthy behaviors within their community. Teachers and industry professionals advised the teams during the planning process. Christopher Gergen of HQ Raleigh and NC New Schools staff brainstormed with industry partners, entrepreneurs, students and teachers to craft the challenge theme and format. The following organizations supported the Challenge through mentoring and judging:

3C Institute
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
Bull City Forward
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Duke Regional Hospital
Elon University School of Education
Fidelity Investments
First Citizens Bank
NC Department of Environment & Natural Resources
NC State University Office of Extension, Engagement and Economic Development
NetApp
North Carolina Space Grant Consortium
Nuvotronics LLC
Plants for Human Health Institute
RTI International
Wake Tech Community College

Governor, GSK launch statewide STEM initiative

Governor Pat McCrory joined last week with GSK and North Carolina New Schools to announce a major venture to advance STEM education in public education aligned with industry and higher education. Called STEMAccelerator - Next Generation Learning for North Carolina, the initiative will accelerate proven STEM education approaches and develop new ones, focused on transforming mathematics and science instruction.

GSK U.S. Pharmaceuticals President Jack Bailey, Governor Pat McCrory and NC New Schools President Tony Habit

"High quality STEM education is critical to North Carolina's future prosperity," said Governor Pat McCrory in announcing the initiative. "To address the gap in education and workforce needs, we must provide resources and support for teachers' professional growth -- especially in the critical areas of science and mathematics. STEMAccelerator will help us meet one of my administration's goals of transforming the teaching profession into a rewarding, long-term career."

The brainchild of NC New Schools, one of the largest public education innovation agencies in the country, STEMAccelerator will build on NC New Schools' proven efforts to advance effective science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education with its partners in industry, K-12 education, and higher education.

GSK, a leading global healthcare company and long-time advocate of STEM education, is jumpstarting the initiative with a $1 million investment. "For nearly a decade, GSK has partnered with NC New Schools to enhance and expand STEM education opportunities for North Carolina students across the state. GSK is committed to supporting the communities where we work and where we live. A major focus of that investment is devoted to expanding the local and national workforce in science, technology, engineering and math. We are proud to deepen this partnership as a founding investor in STEMAccelerator," said Jack Bailey, president, US Pharmaceuticals, GSK.

#ScalingSTEM brings makers to the Triangle

Hundreds of educators, students, innovators and leaders from business and government converged on the Triangle last week for the 2015 Scaling STEM: Design + Create + Inspire conference. Co-hosted by North Carolina New Schools, the NC Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center and the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES), Scaling STEM included exciting keynote addresses from Justin Richards, founder and CEO of Youth Digital; Stephen Ritz, award-winning South Bronx educator; and City of Medicine lead teacher Vance Kite.

Catch up on all the amazing sessions, great ideas, incredible inventions, smiling selfies and delicious food by reading our Storify captures of tweets during the conference:

Pumping process into life sciences classroom

By Lindsay Patterson

NC New Schools Instructional Coach

While working with science teachers to integrate the Engineering Design Process (EDP) into their classroom, I noticed a trend: the EDP has more of a presence in chemistry, physics and especially STEM-based earth science classes. Life science teachers -- biology or anatomy & physiology -- often struggle to locate resources in order to plan lessons or units around the EDP.

As a coach, I hear teachers expressing their fear by saying that it will take up too much time, or they worry that an EDP-based activity may not align with many of their curriculum standards. Understanding that their concerns are valid to them, my role as a coach is to engage in a conversation with those teachers. By talking through the units and the lessons, teachers often discover that the EDP aligns nicely with the curriculum of any science subject.

Since September, I have been working with Enid Duncan, an anatomy & physiology teacher at Panther Creek High School. At first, she wondered if it would just be too difficult and time-consuming for her to integrate the EDP.

The proverbial lightbulb came on as Ms. Duncan was talking about the cardiovascular unit. From that conversation, a plan materialized. The plan was to use the EDP to enhance student understanding of how a heart works. During the lesson planning stage, we discussed not only the EDP, but also the logistics of how to implement the EDP over the course of two or three days.

New research arm to enhance innovations

As the pace of change in public education accelerates along with advances in technology and the economy, the application of research to new innovations has become essential. In response, NC New Schools has established a new research and development arm to design new ways to advance the skills of teachers and administrators, promote new designs in public education and strengthen the quality of our work through continuous improvement.

The new research and development department will deepen the organization's use of data and evidence as it partners with local communities and policy makers to achieve excellence in education. The goal is to reinforce long-term, strategic thinking about the complex needs of schools and school districts. The new department will now become the organization's hub for creating a stronger and more agile learning organization with a focus on innovation, refinement, research and knowledge capture.

The new department will focus on three big initiatives in its first year:

STEM education - In collaboration with a number of external partners, we will build on work begun in 2006 to advance effective STEM education to design, pilot and scale the next generation of services to support innovative education in science, technology, engineering and math.
Competency-based education - We will advance policy and partnerships to support expanded implementation; remove barriers; and design, pilot and scale tools and support services for a mastery-based approach to education.
Educational leadership - Again, we will build on what we're already doing in leadership development, learning from our experiences to expand, design, pilot and scale the next generation of leadership development services.