Teachers build robots and learn enhance math and science teaching skills.School children are not the only ones enjoying various camps at California State University, Fresno this summer. Teachers are learning at the two-week Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Leadership Institute.
Thirty-six elementary and middle school teachers from Fresno, Madera and Kings counties are building robots, analyzing how things work and enhancing their math and science instructional skills at the institute, which ends Friday, July 17.
The institute is a collaboration among the San Joaquin Valley Mathematics Project, Central Valley Science Project and Fresno State’s Lyles College of Engineering.
Faculty from the Kremen School of Education and Human Development, College of Science and Mathematics and the Lyles College at Fresno State and members of the project leadership teams have been involved in the planning and delivery of the institute.
Dr. Gregory Krien, the Fresno State electrical and computer engineering faculty member who leads the robotics portion of the institute, says, “Many teachers are experiencing for the first time how math and science education can be linked together in an exciting and innovative way that is also tied to engineering design.”
One of those teachers learning at the institute is middle school instructor Heidi Harris, who said, “It’s fun applying math and science to applications like technology and engineering. My students would love working with these robots and there is so much I can do with them.”
At the conclusion of the Institute, each participating teacher will receive a LEGO Mindstorms NXT Robotics kit for use in the classroom. Follow-up workshops during the 2009-10 academic year will build upon the institute’s theme of “teaching and learning mathematics and science through applications.”
More information, contact Karen Arth at karth@csufresno.edu, Carol Fry Bohlin at carolb@csufresno.edu, Jim Marshall at jamesm@csufresno.edu or Ram Nunna at rnunna@csufresno.edu.
