Rocky Grimes of Heart of Unlimited Boundaries is pictured above at the Marysville Early College/STEM High School for a STEM Solutions Day on Friday. He informed a group of students about his experience with problem solving to create therapeutic, recreational, career planning and employment training services for individuals with developmental disabilities and critical illnesses. Grimes proposed a challenge to the students to design a controller for a small remote control toy that can be operated using only one hand.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Ally Lanasa)
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The Marysville Early College/STEM High School (MECHS) hosted its first STEM Solutions Day on Friday morning for students to learn about problem-solving from local business leaders.
Tamara Cooper, the internship coordinator at MECHS, said the creation of a STEM Solutions Day was the result of teacher absences for professional development.
Cooper explained that 10 of the instructors at MECHS are hired through Ohio Hi-Point Career Center and needed to attend a professional development day at the center on Friday.
“So our principal, Jen Hinderer, came up with the idea of this design challenge,” she said.
Cooper added that MECHS previously hosted a similar event during “the first three years the school was in session,” but the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted such events for several years.
Fourteen businesses, public service departments and nonprofits were represented including the Union County Chamber of Commerce, the City of Marysville (Engineering Department), Goodwin Services LLC, RE/MAX, Nestle, the Union County Foundation, Heart of Unlimited Boundaries, Honda Marysville, Memorial Hospital, DriveOhio, the Marysville Division of Police, Richwood Bank, Personal Fitness and i9 Sports. Representatives from Heritage Cooperative and RUDIS were also invited, but were unable to attend.
“We do have partnerships with all of the businesses represented (Friday),” Cooper said. “We have had, and currently have, students placed in internships with them.”
The internship program at MECHS began with only 17 student interns.
“We currently have 61 students out, with another 63 anticipated for the second semester,” Cooper said.
The representatives led three sessions to different groups of students, informing the students about their respective careers. The representatives then proposed an authentic challenge to students that the business, nonprofit or public service department could face or is currently facing.
Some of the challenges were to design a controller for a small remote control toy that can be operated using only one hand for Heart of Unlimited Boundaries, to keep children interested in playing sports beyond the age of 11 for i9 Sports and to use technology to move people and cargo between places not by surface transportation or existing aviation for DriveOhio.
Following the presentations, students accepted the challenges and began working collaboratively to offer a solution with the learning target of utilizing the design process used at MECHS: identify, plan, create and communicate.
Each group consists of 25 to 30 students.
“Student groups will be working each week on these challenges,” Cooper said.
Students will present their solutions to the representatives and school staff on Dec. 14 and Dec. 15.