Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23, 2018
June 23, 2018
July 27, 2018
Pre-College Engineering Education
12
10.18260/1-2--30154
https://strategy.asee.org/30154
521
Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem is a partnership that pilots community-engaged, sustainable projects to address real-world challenges in the Southeast neighborhood of City Y, a mid-size city in the Midwest. In an effort to create a more immersive and engaging experience for high school students, BCe2 developed Bowman Creek Academy (BCA). BCA is a week-long academic program that engages high school students with STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education through scientific exploration and community resources. Serving as a catalyst to promote scientific innovation, BCA equips students with the necessary resources and guidance that are currently lacking at the K-12 grade level. During developmentally impressionable years, community resources and affordable platforms provide an environment where youth can explore STEM interest without limitations to time, formatting, or financial restraint. The basis for being a STEM education catalyst is to provide an accessible, affordable, and rigorous curriculum for students to learn how science and technology can directly impact their communities through resources around them. Each day of the program is developed around a facet of environmental science and engineering with guidance from industry professionals, local university professors, and community leaders. Immersive experiences have proven invaluable for inspiring high school students to reconsider STEM fields as a viable path for higher education or skills training. The BCA pilot year consisted of 10 students from 6 regional and national high schools. In 2018, BCA will seek to expand across City Y and explore the idea of creating cohorts throughout the city for other STEM focuses. Whereas the pilot year focused on environmental science and engineering, further cohorts may focus on healthcare and community health enhancement.
Boukdad, S., & Cuevas, A. B., & Kennedy, M. (2018, June), Bowman Creek Academy: An Immersive STEM Experience (Work in Progress) Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30154
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2018 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015