Charleston County schools recognized for commitment to STEM education | News

Six schools in Charleston County were recognized for their dedication to science, technology, engineering, and math in the 2020/21 school year.

Project Lead The Way, a non-profit dedicated to providing STEM professional development and curricula for schools across the country, presented High School Distinguished School awards to Wando High School, James Island Charter High School, and the High School School program of the Charleston Charter School for Math and Science.

The nonprofit recognized Morningside Middle School in North Charleston and Moultrie and Thomas C. Cario Middle School, both in Mount Pleasant, with the Gateway Distinguished School recognition. The Gateway Award also went to the Charleston Charter School for Math and Science’s middle school program.

The six awards are a record for the Charleston County School District, which has used the nonprofit curriculum for over a decade.

The nonprofit names their Distinguished Schools each year based on the schools’ commitment to offering Project Lead The Way programs that include engineering, biomedical and computer science curricula.

For the past decade, the district has been working to expand its Project Lead The Way curriculum, said Tralice Reddock, a professional and technology education curriculum specialist. There are currently 19 schools in the district offering Project Lead The Way programs.

Through the curriculum, students learn technical processes, such as building buildings, designing sustainable architecture, building robots and programming computers. You will also gain experience in identifying skeletal remains and analyzing disease outbreaks through simulations provided by the program.

Students can earn scholarships and college credits through the programs as they work on hands-on and immersive projects.

Reddock said the six programs that won the Distinguished School Award successfully enrolled more students, particularly minority students, into those programs.

“Schools need to show how they can attract students to their courses,” said Reddock. “For example, Wando needs to show how they bring more African American women into these courses, how they bring more students from different backgrounds into these courses.”

The school district is used to being recognized by the nonprofit organization. Of the 11 Distinguished Schools in South Carolina for 2020-21, Charleston County had the most.

Last year five schools received the award. Wando and Cario have each received the award four times in a row. According to the Project Lead the Way website, the district is the only one in the tri-circle to receive the award.

“It’s like seeing the fruits of our labor explode across the county,” said Reddock. “(We) give every student the opportunity to experience the curriculum and empower teachers to teach the same curriculum.”

Reddock and her team plan to expand the programs to other schools across the district. They recently added the Project Lead The Way curriculum to the Centers for Advanced Study in West Ashley, Mount Pleasant, and North Charleston.

Reddock hopes the program will be expanded to include elementary schools. The district is currently working on delivering the curriculum for the Springfield Elementary School in West Ashley and the North Charleston Elementary School.

Follow Libby Stanford on Twitter @libbystanford.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/charleston-county-schools-recognized-for-commitment-to-stem-education-news/