STEM summer: Grad students and middle schoolers tackle drones and coding
For six weeks, West Philadelphia middle schoolers learn and play through a partnership between Penn GSE and Drone Cadets, an education program accredited by STEM.org.
For six weeks, West Philadelphia middle schoolers steer drones through spacious classrooms at Hamilton Elementary and the Penn Alexander School. The program is a partnership between Penn GSE and Drone Cadets, an education program accredited by STEM.org. There are landing pads, obstacle courses, and even “drone bowling,” which tasks pilots with ramming into rows of empty water bottles in an arrowhead formation.
The drone program received a $25,000 grant from the National Black Empowerment Council, and predominantly services Black students. “Proficiency in STEM is essential to one’s advancement, self-determination, and overall quality of life in our modern age,” says Darius Jones, founder and president of the council. “The science and technology train has long left the station. African American children cannot and will not be left behind.”
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
Griffin Pitt’s upbringing made her passionate about water access and pollution, and Penn has given her the opportunity to explore these issues back home in North Carolina and abroad.
Helping robots work together to explore the Moon and Mars
Penn Engineers, NASA, and five other universities tested robotic systems designed to help unmanned explorers cooperate in the dunes of White Sands, New Mexico, paving the way for Moon and Mars exploration.
From framework to actions: Provost John L. Jackson Jr. talks Penn Forward
In a Q&A, Provost John L. Jackson Jr. explains the relationship between the strategic framework In Principle and Practice and Penn Forward—a new University-wide process and action plan that will advance Penn forward for the next decade and beyond.
