Tag Archives: STEM

Brooklyn Science Innovation Initiative Final Event!

 

This summer, 30 NYC high school students participated in Kingsborough’s Brooklyn Science Innovation Initiative (BSII), a STEM program that combined chemistry, nutrition, urban farming and entrepreneurship topics into one 5-week summer intensive.

Using KCC’s Urban Farm as a hands-on, living lab, students learned about carbohydrates, fats, protiens, vitamins and minerals through a nutritional chemistry course. This class was paired with a business course, Sustainable Entrepreneurship, where groups of students developed businesses based on the science topics they learned.

Join us on Thursday, August 3rd for the final event where groups of students will pitch their business in a “Shark Tank”-style event and showcase the science behind their work in a posterboard session. All are welcome to attend.

Register for the event here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/brooklyn-science-innovation-initiative-2017-tickets-36285867005 

This Summer at Kingsborough: Chemistry, Nutrition, Business and Farming!

Calling all High School Juniors! 

Spend July with Kingsborough’s for the Brooklyn Science Innovation Initiative (BSII) a science and business immersion program!

 

This program has a lot going for it! First, you’ll learn about foundational chemistry topics through the lens f nutrition, specifically about how chemicals, vitamins and minerals effect basic bodily systems. Second, you’ll use KCC Urban Farm, KCC’s on-campus food production site, as a hands-on laboratory. Third, you’ll take what you’ve learned to create businesses that respond to industry-related problems. When you go back to school in the Fall, you’ll have the power to amaze your friends with your knowledge of chemistry, business, nutrition AND farming.

Last year’s focus of Earth Science led students to create businesses such as SpearTech, a solar-powered outdoor canopy that harnesses the sun’s power for usable energy, and BeeHax, a company that studies and proposes solutions to the collapse of bee colonies around the world, among others.

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Summer STEM at CEWD and KCC

This summer 14 high school juniors and seniors participated in the Brooklyn Science Innovation Initiative (BSII), a program generously supported by the AT&T Foundation. BSII, a collaboration between CEWD–led by our very own Dr. Edgar Troudt–and KCC’s College Now program–led by the program’s Director Robert Pero–provided college-level Earth Science and Entrepreneurship classes. During this 5-week program, student groups developed virtual business based on what they learned in class.

Photo via Jessica Nieberg at Kings County Politics

Photo via Jessica Nieberg at Kings County Politics

Last week, these students presented their businesses to a crowd of over 50, including the president of AT&T Foundation in New York, Marissa Shorenstein, KCC President Farley Herzek, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. Businesses included a system using oysters to clean the ocean, the development of metal cell phone cases to protect and limit radiation exposure, a proposed design for a prototype machine to clean the bottom of the ocean, a solar-powered water filtration system for countries with limited access to clean drinking water, and an app to help make learning earth science more enjoyable.

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Working Hard With Math

Math. For some, its mere mention is enough to bring on pangs of anxiety from schooldays gone by.

In December, the NY Times published an article talking about the state of math education (specifically in relation to STEM careers) across the country. The bottom line, according to the Times: math education in the US is boring. Its system has remained unchanged for so long, with very few mechanisms to spark interest and encourage creativity, that most students can’t fathom pursuing the subject past what’s required.

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