STEM

Washington University in St. Louis’ Teaching Center brought together faculty from Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering & Applied Science for the inaugural Summer STEM Faculty Institute on Teaching (STEM FIT), held June 17-19 in Seigle Hall. Faculty developed strategies for incorporating evidence-based teaching practices to improve student learning and encourage undergraduates to persist in STEM majors.

The ninth annual YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition has announced the year’s winners and its $155,000 in awards. Winning teams represented community and Washington University in St. Louis social entrepreneurs. Their social venture ideas ranged widely, covering youth, teens, education, science and more.

Women are underrepresented in the important fields of science, technology, engineering and math — minority women even more so. To help close the gender gap, Washington University will sponsor an innovate new charter school: the Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls, the first single-sex STEM charter school in St. Louis.

This summer, 75 teachers from five St. Louis area school districts and two charter schools spent two intensive weeks on the Washington University in St. Louis campus kicking off a yearlong professional development program called STEM Teacher Quality Initiative.

Washington University in St. Louis is one of eight Association of American Universities (AAU) member campuses selected to serve as project sites for the association’s five-year initiative to improve the quality of undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields at its member institutions, AAU officials announced today.

Explore Engineering, a daylong community outreach event sponsored by Washington University School of Engineering & Applied Science, allows students to work with Washington University Engineering faculty and students and get hands-on experience in engineering projects to promote critical thinking.

High school students competed at the annual Boeing Engineering Challenge at the WU Field House May 3. About 100 area high school students from six school districts on 25 teams visited the WUSTL campus to take part in the Boeing Challenge. The teams competed to determine which glider had the farthest flight, straightest path, longest hang time or highest quality of flight. Pictured are Eureka High School students who built a glider.

Every Tuesday afternoon, an undergraduate from WUSTL’s  School of Engineering & Applied Science heads back to middle school. Nick Okafor leads the after-school Young Engineers Club at Brittany Woods Middle School in University City. N’Desha Scott, a sophomore majoring in biomedical engineering, started the club last fall as a way to reach out to middle school students from groups traditionally underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Washington University in St. Louis’ Institute for School Partnership (ISP) and its signature science education program, MySci, take a major step forward Monday, Feb. 18, when they open the MySci Resource Center at 6601 Vernon Ave. Refurbished with the help of a $2.2 million grant from the Monsanto Fund, the MySci Resource Center becomes the nerve center of the ISP, WUSTL’s signature effort to strategically improve teaching and learning within the K-12 education community in the St. Louis region. ​

More students with an autism spectrum disorder gravitate toward science, technology, engineering and math majors in college than other students. But they have low college admission rates because of gender, finances and other barriers, finds a new study, co-authored by Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.