Subject: Wall Street Journal article about HEAF: please feel free to pass along the article to colleagues to update them about HEAF.
NYU-Poly Partners with HEAF to Offer "STEM" Education to Middle School Students
POSTED APRIL
18TH, 2013
NEW YORK – April 18, 2013 –
Continuing its tradition of offering the most advanced coursework to its
middle and high school students in Science, Technology, Engineering,
and
Mathematics (STEM) and other areas, nonprofit Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF) has
partnered with the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) to
expand NYU-Poly’s prestigious Science of Smart Cities (SoSC) program
to HEAF’s seventh
and eighth graders. SoSC offers New York City public school students
the opportunity to learn and apply advanced STEM knowledge and skills
through hands-on instruction, innovative curriculum and field trips with
the hope to prepare students to pursue STEM
careers.
NYU Poly’s Center for K12
STEM Education builds on an existing academic relationship with HEAF,
the leading supplemental education nonprofit in New York City that turns
underserved
New York City middle and high school students into high-achieving
college graduates. Taught by the university’s undergrad students,
NYU-Poly’s SoSC offers HEAF’s middle school students the opportunity to
learn and understand how various urban systems, including
water, waste management, energy and communications, function and how
advances in technology and engineering can improve the world’s cities.
Applying what they have
learned in these specialized classes, the students visited the downtown
Brooklyn offices of Northrop Grumman, a leading American aerospace and
defense
technology company as well as an avid supporter of STEM education among
K-12 students. HEAF students received instruction from Northrop Grumman
engineers who covered a range of contemporary urban topics, such as
traffic engineering and sustainability. In May,
the program culminates in final projects for which students will
construct their own model “smart city” using real-world materials and
technologies.
Programs such as NYU-Poly’s
SoSC that expose students to STEM fields early in their academic careers
are more important than ever. The demand for STEM education is
increasing
both at the federal and local levels, as the U.S. competes to reassert
its position as a global leader in the science and technology fields.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 2.1
million new jobs in STEM areas will exist by 2020.
However, only 23 percent of college freshmen are entering STEM majors,
and only a fraction of these students are African American and Latino.
Both HEAF and NYU-Poly are recognized leaders in educating underserved
communities.
“As President Obama recently
stated in his State of the Union address and has reinforced through his
Administration’s Educate to Innovate campaign, we need to better equip
students
for the demands of a high-tech economy,” said Ruth Rathblott, president
and CEO of HEAF. “In order to do that, we must increase STEM literacy
among students, especially those from underrepresented groups, and
provide hands-on, real-world experiences that pique
their intellectual curiosity and build their critical thinking and
problem-solving skills. Through our great partnership with NYU-Poly and
our own curriculum, we are arming our students with highly advanced
coursework and exposing them to a higher education
experience early on, which will prepare them for college, career and a
lifetime of learning.”
“We are delighted to partner
with HEAF to provide our STEM curriculum to their students and
introduce the field of engineering in the context of urban systems and
sustainability,”
said Ben Esner, director of the Center for K12 STEM Education at
NYU-Poly. “NYU-Poly’s Science of Smart Cities program starts with
something young people relate to—their immediate environment—and
demonstrates how the tools of science and technology can shape
the future they’d like to make happen.”
HEAF’s participation in
NYU-Poly’s SoSC is just one example of how HEAF is exposing its students
to college-level work and direct experience with higher education
institutions.
Last year, an NYU-Poly graduate student mentored HEAF’s high school
students through the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition, during
which HEAF students designed, built and programmed robots to compete
against other high school teams. HEAF frequently
partners with a number of other prestigious universities – such as
Barnard College, where students have studied humanities including
women’s history, and Touro College, where students have studied health
education – to expose them to college-level work that
is often not available to inner-city students.
For more than 20 years, HEAF
has an unmatched track record of success with 100 percent of students
graduating high school and 98 percent pursing higher education. This
compares
to 65 percent of all New York City students graduating high school and
only 37 percent of African-American and Hispanic male youth completing
high school in four years.
For more information about HEAF or the Smart Cities program, visit www.heaf.org.
For more information on NYU-Poly’s K12 Center for STEM Education, visit www.poly.edu/k12stem.
EDITOR’S NOTE: On
May 18, 2013 at 12 p.m. ET, HEAF students will present their Science of
Smart Cities projects at HEAF (2090 Adam Clayton Powell Junior
Boulevard, New York, N.Y. 10027). Media are invited to attend.
Rose Associates, Inc.
Daniel Rose
Chairman
200 Madison Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, New York 10016-3912
Direct: (212) 210-6620
Fax: (212) 651-6620
ROSENYC.COM
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