ULM, Monroe City Scholars partner for summer STE-A-M Institute

For the second consecutive year, Monroe City Schools is partnering with the University of Louisiana at Monroe to provide a summer STEM Institute (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) for local middle school students.

Sixty scholars from all three Monroe city middle schools were recommended by their teachers, counselors and principals to participate in the week-long residential camp.

“Monroe City Scholars is part of a community-based STEM initiative to motivate and prepare local students to take advanced math and science courses so that they will be ready for college and high-level STEM careers in local companies like CenturyLink and Angus Chemical Company, a subsidiary of DOW,” said Dr. Lynn Clark, director of ULM’s DREAM office and assistant professor of Curriculum and Instruction.  

This year the focus of the camp is process technology; the process used to create and deliver products.  Each day, scholars will participate in career explorations by visiting a different industry partner to see how process technology is part of local careers.

Scholars will visit a natural gas compressor station, EnerVest oil and gas company, a chemical plant, Angus Chemical Company, the paper mill at Graphic Packaging in West Monroe, and CenturyLink headquarters in Monroe.

At each site, scholars will learn first-hand how to respond to customer requests, with the development, implementation, and distribution of a product. 

During their afternoon sessions, scholars will apply the concepts of process technology in ULM laboratories in one of three college investigations taught by university faculty: Earth sciences with Dr. Anne Case Hanks, Physical sciences with Dr. Laura Beal, and Life sciences with Dr. Heath Barnett. 

Supporting the career explorations and college investigations, will be mini-courses in literacy taught by Dr. Beth Ricks, language taught by Bryan Butler, and the Arts led by students of ULM Visual and Performing Arts.

These activities will center on the graphic novel biography Feynman by Jim Ottaviani, about the larger-than-life exploits of Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist Richard Feynman.

According to the National Science foundation, great scientific and technological breakthroughs are expected at the intersection of arts and sciences disciplines.

By adding the “A” (Arts) to the Summer STEM Institute, faculty hopes to encourage scholars to use literature and the arts to find the connections between STEM subjects, the world of work, and themselves. 

Scholars will bring it all together and demonstrate their learning at the Learning Exhibition and Awards Banquet on Friday, July 20 at 5 p.m. in the ULM Student Union Building Ballroom.

To attend or for additional information, contact Cynthia Rodriguez at 318-342-1296 or crodriguez@ulm.edu.