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Annual Stem-tastic Conference Will Include Schools From Throughout County

LARCHMONT, N.Y. -- The Mamaroneck school district will host the second annual STEM-tastic conference on Saturday at Hommocks Middle School.

Astronaut Kathryn Hire

Astronaut Kathryn Hire

Photo Credit: Contributed

This event is the largest hands-on STEM festival in the lower Hudson Valley region, presented by the STEM Alliance of Larchmont-Mamaroneck. 

STEM-tastic Saturday, which drew more than 2,000 guests in its inaugural year, has been extended to a two-day experience that includes a half-day of career conversations for Mamaroneck High School seniors on Friday from 12:15-3:15 p.m. Mamaroneck Public Schools will welcome 65 STEM and STEAM professionals to participate in roundtable conversations with graduating class members. The conversations will focus on diverse career paths, educational backgrounds and experiences that lead to those careers, personal passions in pursuit of work and how various jobs connect directly or indirectly to STEM and STEAM skills. 

Saturday’s keynote speaker at 2 p.m. will be astronaut Kathryn Hire, who served on two NASA Space Shuttle missions and logged more than 700 hours in space and more than 10 million miles in orbit. 

For more information, visit http://www.lmstemalliance.org/index.html.

Mamaroneck has been a leader among public school districts in Westchester County looking to make STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) (or now STEAM to include art) initiatives an integral part of the curriculum and showing students firsthand the connection between learning experiences in the classroom and applied opportunities in the real-world.

The seed was planted many years ago when the Mamaroneck Schools Foundation (which since 1996 has awarded more than 400 grants totaling more than $3.5 million for innovative, teacher-initiated projects that fall beyond the scope of the district budget) gave Hommocks Middle School a grant to bring iPads into the Earth science classrooms.

From there, things blossomed. The ipad/1:1 computing initiative expanded to include multiple grades across all subject areas. The computer science program at Mamaroneck High School was initiated and now includes a three-year, in-depth sequence that prepares students for the Advanced Placement exam. And the district during the 2015-16 school year will expand its engineering program, as well as launch a new integrated, multidisciplinary four-year graphic design sequence that culminates in a real-world design team experience.

 

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