Posoh! students used this greeting in the Menominee Language to welcome STARBASE staff May 15th. For one week, twenty-five 5th grade students at Keshena Primary School (KPS) entered the world of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education. Department of Defense (DoD) STARBASE Wisconsin Instructors, Michelle Klos-Gonzalez and Tiffany Newton, provided a five day STEM Academy in Keshena, Wisconsin.
This marks the first time STARBASE Wisconsin offered a mobile program in Wisconsin to expand their outreach beyond the City of Milwaukee. Keshena Wisconsin is on the Menominee Indian Reservation and located approximately 160 miles North of Milwaukee. Keshena Primary School is a part of the Menominee Indian School District. The public school district serves youth from the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin enrolled in K4 through 12th grade.
STARBASE Wisconsin’s Mission is to expose and generate enthusiasm in our youth to explore STEM careers and experience positive civilian and military role models found on military bases and installations by providing 25 hours of exemplary hands-on STEM instruction that meet or exceed National Science Standards. KPS students participated in exciting activities including:
Robotics, Engineering Design, Small Scale Model Rocketry, and Crime Scene Investigation. Staff members at KPS were very pleased with the program. Michelle Koehler, a fifth grade educator at KPS, reflected on her students experience stating, “The STARBASE program has shown my students that math and science really do matter outside of the classroom. They were able to experience the material they learned in class is actually used in real life. They also were able to discover the ever growing career fields in STEM areas.” DoD STARBASE will arrive in Keshena in 2018 to offer another academy.
Laura Duggan, Principal of Keshena Public School, stated, “This program has benefited our students greatly, because the opportunities your program offered included many lessons and demonstrations that we would not typically be prepared to do here. Your team’s expertise made it easy for students to understand and the material was very engaging and interesting to them as well. I am quite sure it has opened their eyes to many concepts of which they were not yet aware.”
To learn more about the STARBASE Wisconsin program in Wisconsin, visit www.Starbasewi.org or contact John Puttre, Director-STARBASE Wisconsin, via email at jputtre@starbasewi.org or telephone at (414)535-5786.
