What a summer!
The REC, through a U.S. Department of Defense NDEP grant and its Virtual STEAM Summer Academy, was able to provide science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics experiences to hundreds of rural middle and high school students in rural Kansas, while also training dozens of teachers to lead their own STEM workshops.
Learning, Exploration, and Application for Prospective Engineering Students, or LEAPES, offered training for teachers as well as support for summer camps across Kansas. Check out the LEAPES activities at: https://coe.ksu.edu/collaborations/documents/LEAPES%20Yr%202%202023.pdf The University of Kansas partnered with us on the grant to provide experiences for high school students.
Here’s a report on the Virtual STEAM program for summer 2023, which reached 359 middle schoolers—including several international sites: https://coe.ksu.edu/collaborations/documents/Virtual%20STEAM%202023.pdf While we don’t have next summer’s content set yet, this will give you ideas about our topics and teachers: https://www.k-state.edu/stem-career-education/summercamps/summer-STEAM-classic.html
Want to be involved next year? Reach out to Ennis Rios at ruraled@ksu.edu.