Beyer High to unveil STEM Center on Thursday

Just as science is about experimenting and exploring, Beyer High teachers hope students, families and the interested public on Thursday evening will turn out to explore what’s being taught in the school’s new STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Center.

The school is having a grand-opening celebration for the center, dubbed The STEAM Room to incorporate the “A” for arts that has been added to the education acronym.

Beyer has invited eighth-graders and their families from Sylvan Union district schools to tour the center. “We also hope to get people who are interested in robotics or STEM subjects,” said Beyer math instructor Randi Smith. And, she said, the school would like its own students and their parents to see the new addition to campus. “We’d like to see them take more STEM classes.”

Beyer is the first Modesto City Schools district high school to have a dedicated STEM center, said Smith and science teacher Stuart Kaplan. The space initially was two classrooms, then a resource center, then the Pathways program center for a couple of years, then went unused, Smith said.

Beyer chose to become a STEM school when it launched its robotics program, she said. “And we decided we needed a STEM center.” To prepare the room, the carpeting was pulled up and the concrete floor polished in anticipation of the spills that come with a chemistry class, Smith said. The tables in the room are wheeled and collapsible, allowing plenty of space for robotics work and things such as projectile experiments.

The school has two student robotics groups: those who compete in the First Technical Challenge (FTC) and the First Robotics Competition (FRC). FTC is more of a club and does Lego-type robotics competitions, Smith said, while the FRC demands that students build their robots from parts they machine themselves.

Robotics students will be showing their creations at Thursday’s grand opening. Other students will be giving demonstrations and doing lab exercises using the center’s new equipment.

Much of that equipment is a variety of probes that plug into hand-held computers. One probe measures carbon dioxide output of substances, Kaplan said. Colorimeters help determine the composition of substances by measuring the absorbency of particular wavelengths of light. Motion sensors help students conduct experiments testing speed, distance and other factors.

The equipment helps STEM teachers meet the Common Core goal of “getting away from the teacher-led classroom and textbook-based instruction and toward exploration-driven activities,” Kaplan said. The tools allow physics, chemistry and biology teachers to greatly expand their curriculum, he said.

Beyer’s aim is to expand its inventory of probes and other equipment so labs become more hands-on for every student, he said. Working in groups, there always will be those kids who don’t get actively involved. Working in pairs or solo opens up more opportunity to learn by doing, Kaplan said.

Because the probes and hand-held computers are portable, instruction isn’t constricted by the classroom, Kaplan said. He noted that by using a short-wave ultraviolet B probe, he’s developed an experiment in which students can compare the effectiveness of a variety of sunblocks. They might find that a $5 drugstore brand is just as effective as a $20 one, he said.

As the school builds on its equipment inventory, the faculty is looking at ways those tools can shape curriculum and how it is taught, Kaplan said. “It’s still in the research phase,” he said, “but it definitely will allow Beyer to expand its curriculum by leaps and bounds.”

There will be no formal program at Thursday’s grand opening, Smith said, but a special guest will be in attendance to speak with visitors and take questions. Beyer alumna Nancy Stoyer will be stationed at an exhibit beneath The STEAM Room’s periodic table of elements. As a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, she was part of a team that created Element 114, flerovium, in 1998.

The discovery was hailed as “The Holy Grail” by many nuclear scientists, according to a 2000 article in The Bee. The element captured such attention because of its relative stability. In experiments, it existed for about 30 seconds – much longer than most man-made elements that live only fractions of seconds.

“No one has been able to reach this ‘island of stability.’ It’s sort of a mythical place, like El Dorado,” the then-33-year-old Stoyer said at the time. “So to be part of the team that has – if not stepped onto the island – at least made it to the shore, is very exciting.”

The STEAM Room grand opening will run from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Look for the sign at the school’s C wing, on the east end of the campus near Sylvan Avenue and Palmwood Drive.

After the free grand opening will be a spaghetti feed fundraiser for the Beyer robotics program. Tickets can be purchased in advance at the school, or at the door Thursday.

“If you’re interested in robots, you’ll see a lot of them Thursday,” Smith said, inviting folks to come “see what makes Beyer different.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 3:56 PM with the headline "Beyer High to unveil STEM Center on Thursday."