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The Mt. Lebanon School District is proud to provide a STEM Academy for its students. The purpose of the STEM Academy is to provide opportunities to learn about STEM careers through a systematic method of promoting college and career readiness among Mt. Lebanon students. There is currently strong evidence to suggest that Mt. Lebanon High School does an exemplary job of preparing its graduates for life after high school. However, “life after high school” is an ever-changing experience. As a result, the Mt. Lebanon High School staff continually monitors and adjusts curriculum and programs in order to provide students with the best education possible. The STEM Academy is a product of this forward-thinking regarding what Mt. Lebanon alumni need to know and be able to do.
STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but for Mt. Lebanon High School students and teachers it is far more than just an acronym. In recent years, nearly half of Mt. Lebanon High School graduates have chosen to pursue a career in a STEM-related field. These career choices may lead students to engineer automobiles and buildings, design robots and smart phones, or develop new medicines and water purification systems.
Mt. Lebanon High School has a strong tradition of excellence in science and math education, and the time has come to enhance the college and career preparation components of those programs. By making meaningful changes in courses that are currently available and adding some carefully selected extracurricular experiences, the STEM Academy will provide students with a better understanding of the wide variety of STEM careers that are available. The world’s future depends on our current students’ capacity for innovation, communication, and problem-solving. The Mt. Lebanon STEM Academy will produce the kind of thinkers such a world demands.
In an effort to better prepare current students for college and careers, Mt. Lebanon teachers have developed the Mt. Lebanon High School STEM Academy. The STEM Academy is built on the foundation of existing classes, with a focus on higher-level thinking skills and connections across disciplines. For example, when asked for an example of the type of higher-level thinking students are doing, Biology teacher Michael Hathy replied, “Instead of asking kids the name of a plant, we ask them where to put the plant in the classroom so the plant will flourish. Then we ask them to explain why it will thrive in that location.”
Students who enroll at Level 3 in the Academy will take a core group of classes that provide challenging, student-centered, inquiry-based educational experiences. These experiences will incorporate relevant, real world problem solving that helps students develop analytical skills. Additionally, the unique, flexible nature of the STEM Academy allows students to still select elective course offerings that meet their individual interests.
Participation in the STEM Academy will not only improve awareness of careers, it will also better prepare students for their college studies. One way to accomplish this goal is by having STEM Academy students enroll in rigorous curricular offerings that mirror the college courses they will take. Offerings such as Organic Chemistry, Engineering Statics, Linear Algebra, and Architectural Drawing serve this purpose. Another component of the STEM Academy that will prepare students for college is direct interaction between Mt. Lebanon students and college professors. For example, Vince Scalzo’s Advanced Placement Environmental Geoscience students were visited by Carnegie Mellon University’s Albert Presto. Dr. Presto, a professor of Mechanical Engineering and member of CMU's Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, shared information about his classes and areas of research at CMU.
The STEM Academy will also provide a significant career awareness component through the use of a wide variety of guest speakers. Local professionals in STEM-related fields will meet with students to highlight the connections between classroom experiences and real world job opportunities. Geosciences teacher, Michael Gullo, uses a variety of speakers for this purpose. For the past several years, Dr. Gullo’s students have heard about laws involving wetland development from environmental scientist and Mt. Lebanon resident, Matt Hoover. Gullo’s students have also heard from Westmoreland County Community College professor and former New Orleans resident about the environmental and economic impact of hurricane Katrina. In addition to hearing from speakers like these, STEM Academy students will also be able to sign up for field trips and summer workshops that will focus on learning about STEM careers. Recently, 16 students from the STEM Academy visited CMU's department of biomedical engineering to learn about the most up to date developments in this field. This collaboration among educators, businessmen and women, and community partners culminate with students in the Academy taking part in shadowing experiences during their junior and senior years in high school.
Students who successfully complete the requirements for Level 3 participation in the STEM Academy will receive recognition when they graduate, but the opportunities of this innovative program will be available to all students. The fact that Mt. Lebanon’s STEM Academy emphasizes collaboration, communication, problem solving and critical thinking, which are skills that all students must have to be successful, means that the STEM Academy has something to offer everyone.
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