As the first middle school in the State of Illinois to earn AdvancED STEM Certification, HFCA was measured against eleven rigorous criteria during the certification process. One of these criterion included the school’s efforts to recognize and support underrepresented students in STEM. One such identified group has been middle school girls.
For decades, researchers have struggled to explain the reasons middle school girls lose interest in math and science. National Science Board (https://nsf.gov/statistics/2018) states women represent only 15% of engineers and 26% of computer and mathematical scientists.
We are particularly excited to celebrate our all-girl 8th grade team who won second place in Carmel High School’s Middle School Math Competition which draws from 19 public and Catholic schools.
The HFCA team members are all considering STEM careers, and they attribute the interactive, hands-on teaching style at HFCA with piquing their curiosity and interest. HFCA exposes students to a wide range of engineering and design concepts through a rotation of 12 STEM modules over the course of middle school. States Sarah Graham, “My favorite unit was the Introduction to Electrical Engineering. I learned so much more because we were never limited to just studying a subject from a textbook.”
Natalie, Sarah, Rachel and Ashlee will be attending Fremd High School next year and all have been accepted into Fremd’s STEM-focused Project Lead the Way Program, a nationwide,prestigious, hands-on engineering program offered to select incoming freshman.
We are so proud of our students! We are honored to be the first middle school program in the state to earn STEM Certification, but the true measure of our program is seeing our students recognized by top area high schools for their hard work and STEM knowledge.