STEM concept

STEM disciplines guarantee wide range success for high school students

STEM is an acronym referring to the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

STEM education, then, is the acquiring of knowledge in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics through an integrated approach: one that offers a hands-on and relevant learning and teaching experience for children of all ages. This includes young children from birth all the way to adolescents.

Focus on natural sciences and technology

With regard to education, the introduction and teaching of STEM education has garnered fervent support from various institutions and prominent voices in the fields of both education and science.

According to a great number of educational scientists, STEM skills should be studied early and not be explored independently or in isolation as a separate group of subjects but rather implemented across the board, in all schools, regardless of the dominant educational profile students have opted for.

One of the main differences that truly sets STEM schools apart is the fact that they have fully integrated both natural sciences and liberal arts into their educational programs.

Partnership with NASA and the Kennedy Space Center

For over a decade, Allison Academy students have had the opportunity to engage in the Fairchild Challenge – an award-winning interdisciplinary environmental science competition designed to stimulate intellectual curiosity and foster environmental stewardship for a more sustainable future.

In partnership with NASA and the Kennedy Space Center, Fairchild Tropical Garden has offered Allison Academy students, as well as students across the nation, opportunities to collect botanical data that contributes directly to NASA’s effort to find suitable crops for long-term space missions.

Using an in-class laboratory similar to the one being used on the International Space Station, our students are conducting ongoing research on various factors contributing to plant growth in space, and have received an award for the quality and clarity of their data.

This STEM-based project has given Allison Academy students the opportunity to contribute authentic data to the scientific community, to help with solving problems, and has put them in direct contact with NASA scientists and college professors, and continues to empower them to become, as Fairchild’s education staff puts it, “the next generation of scientists, researchers, educated voters, policymakers, and environmentally-minded citizens.”

STEM is the foundation for success in any field

Regardless of the academic aspirations or careers students choose to pursue, STEM subjects will enable them to stand out when applying for jobs despite the evolving nature and ever-growing list of demands of the job market. Through the study of natural sciences, a student specializing in the humanities is able to acquire a more precise, systematic and methodical disposition.

With the rapid introduction of various IT tools into our daily routine, it is by no means a stretch to imply that in the near future, we will not be able to buy so much as a bus ticket without using some form of basic IT knowledge. Countless such examples have prompted scientists to emphasize the importance of STEM skills and the necessity for modern schools to introduce such subjects into their curricula so that they are available to everyone.

Allison Academy strives to provide an education that meets both student needs and the demands of the job market. Our school offers educational programs which follow an integrated curriculum that uniformly implements Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics across the board. That is the essence of a high-quality STEM-based education which is exactly what our school and educators provide.

In addition to high-quality competencies, the STEM approach continuously raises the bar in terms of the spatial, design and technological capacities educational institutions need to develop and the resources they need to provide in order to successfully meet STEM standards.