The push is on to prepare kids for the high-tech age
By Norman Draper, Star Tribune
Last update: July 27, 2007 – 11:09 PM
Apple Valley's Cedar Park Elementary School will open this September with a highfalutin mouthful of a name: Cedar Park Elementary - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Magnet School.
The new name signifies that Cedar Park will no longer be a traditional elementary school, but one that will give its 580 students a firmer grounding in the four fields, known as STEM. That will require more space. This summer, rising cinder block walls and scaffolding outside the school mark where 4,000 square feet of new classroom and lab space will open for business in December.
"Most schools will have an art room, but not a science lab," said Cedar Park Principal Margaret Gruenes. The school's new space will accommodate a digital microscope, computers loaded with scientific software and other scientific materials.
Cedar Park is part of a statewide effort to bring Minnesota students up to speed in science, math and related fields.
It ties in to the nationwide concern that American students are being overtaken in math, science, technology and engineering by students in other countries. Though there are signs that student interest in these fields is on the rebound, state officials, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty, have been hammering at the need for Minnesota students to concentrate more on STEM courses, and for more students to pursue STEM careers.
Statewide, 23 high schools and middle schools received grants in 2006 to ramp up their STEM teaching and resources.
For example, math and science teachers at Henry Sibley High School, in Mendota Heights, are collaborating with two middle schools to create a summer academy for eighth-graders struggling with math and science. In Minneapolis, Washburn High School is creating a college credit course in sheet-metal technology. In the Robbinsdale district, Cooper High School in New Hope and Armstrong High School in Plymouth are collaborating with health care organizations to allow students to work with such medical instruments as EKG sensors, skin temperature probes and heart-rate monitors.
There are plenty of signs that Minnesota schools are getting the message that STEM should have greater emphasis.
In the Anoka-Hennepin district, for instance, Blaine High School has been designated a special school for STEM subjects this fall. So has Monroe Elementary in Brooklyn Park.
The Legislature this spring approved the use of $3 million to set up Math & Science Teacher Academies throughout the state to provide extra training for teachers in the STEM disciplines. Earlier this month, the state got a $500,000 grant to tack on to that legislative appropriation. State education officials are also exploring how to mix more engineering and technology in with science and math.
Among the signs of the state's interest in making students more science- and math-savvy are new requirements that high school students, beginning with the Class of 2015, will have to take Algebra I in eighth grade and Algebra II during high school, as well as either chemistry or physics.
At Cedar Park Elementary, in addition to the new lab and classroom space, the rooms will also feature "see-through" sections so students can examine the building materials, insulation, electrical wiring and color-coded pipes used to make them.
The school also expects to acquire a weather station. School grounds will be planted with native Minnesota grasses to serve as an outdoors scientific classroom.
Two other Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan elementary schools will become districtwide magnets this fall. One will specialize in international studies and the other in arts and science. Cedar Park's STEM emphasis has drawn the most interest, district officials say. Because the school's racial minority population -- more than half of the student body -- is so much higher than that of other schools in the district, the school had to do something to try to even things out. So kids were given the option to go to other schools, and the school was designated as a magnet, with an emphasis on a particular subject, and open to students from throughout the district. When district officials called public meetings to discuss magnet school topics, near the top of the list in terms of parent interest were technology, math and science.
"STEM is very appealing to families of all backgrounds," said Michelle deKam Palmieri, the district's magnet-school specialist. "I think part of this is they are hearing about it on the news and from the governor. I think parents are starting to think ahead."
At Cedar Park, most parents opted to keep their kids in the new voluntary program. According to Gruenes, another 180 students from outside the school attendance area signed up for the program. The school could accommodate only about 90 of those students.
DeKam Palmieri said other subjects -- reading and writing, for instance -- will not suffer because of the new emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math. Teachers will continue to use the regular district course materials. But they will try to mix in the STEM topics whenever they can.
"Though they're going to be using the same curriculum everyone else uses, they're going to be going further in depth" in the STEM areas, deKam Palmieri said.
Norman Draper • 612-673-4547 • ndraper@startribune.com
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