This week and next, 24 middle school students of the Greater Boston Area are on Northeastern University’s campus to participate in our Summer STEM Program, where they are learning about the engineering design process through hands-on activities, field trips, and systems thinking.
The theme of the program this year is engineering and natural disasters. The students are studying the immediate and long term effects of such events, and how utilizing different types of engineering can mitigate potentially-devastating effects. This week, activities included topics pertaining to rising sea levels, coping with natural disasters, ethics in engineering, sustainability, overfishing, supply chains, and transportation.
Nearly 500 individuals have participated in the program to date. By providing this program to local middle school students, the Center for STEM Education hopes to inspire interest in STEM fields, the use of systems thinking, and to show that learning can be exploratory and engaging. Many of our NUSSP students later participate in the Young Scholars Program, a competitive six-week research experience open to local high school students.
You can learn more about NUSSP and its impact here.
