Full STEM Ahead: Palmetto’s Dedication to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

In recent years, policymakers, educators and industry leaders have emphasized the importance of science, technology, engineering and math in education, providing students with hands-on teaching experiences and allowing them to understand and develop content fully.

“I feel that incorporating STEM activities into school is important because as we’re moving forward into what seems to be like a new era of technological innovation, especially with AI such as ChatGPT, we’re gonna need more people who are well versed in STEM concepts to help manage all this new technology that’s going to be developed or even to help develop the technology,” MPSH junior and President-elect of Math Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, Sunny You said.

At Miami Palmetto Senior High, the abundance of STEM activities and courses led to the school applying for a STEM designation for the 2022-2023 school year under Miami-Dade County Public Schools’s STEM designation program.

MPSH is currently in the process of reaching this certification. After applying in August, and undergoing a year-long process focusing on various aspects of the school’s program, the school waits to see if they have been recognized as a STEM school.

“You have to apply every year and we have to apply back in August. Having a STEM designation is not going to change any of that. It’s just going to be a label. It’s better to have it than not have it, but it’s not going to really change. It may change some of the things that people do in their classes to make sure that they really are bringing things in and coordinating it. It might help with some coordination and cooperation between math and science and that’s a good thing,” MPSH AP Environmental Science teacher and Science Department Chair Pamela Shlachtman said. “[The qualification] includes three main areas. One area would be the courses that we offer, and we certainly offer within the science and math department, every possible AP science and math course. And in our [Career Technical Education] department, we offer pretty much also a wealth of courses; that was a qualifier.”

MPSH junior and Science National Honors Society President-Elect Alexa Fein says the designation could improve the reputation of the school and attract students interested in STEM.

“I think it’s just a label that we can use on things like advertising or to put a banner on the fence. So maybe it would inspire more people who are interested in STEM to come to Palmetto,” Fein said.

MPSH offers various STEM courses, including AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, AP Physics 1, AP Environmental Science, AP Computer Science Principles and more. The Science National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta and Robotics Club are a few examples of the STEM clubs that students can join.

Within these clubs, students compete in many activities such as Envirothon, Science, Engineering, Communication, Mathematics and Enrichment (SECME), Science Bowl, the American Mathematics Competition and more. These competitions allow students to represent MPSH at the local, state and national levels. This year, MPSH robotics club came first place in the bridge competition at Miami-Dade County’s SECME event, which focuses on challenging students to use their skills in STEM to design and build various structures and devices. In 2022, You and MPSH junior Isabel Duran represented the school at the National Chemistry Olympiad.

“For math [competitions] under robotics, it’s the SECME competition under robotics, then under Mu Alpha Theta. We have the… American Mathematics Competitions. And then we have the FAMAT competitions, which are Mu Alpha Theta competitions. And then for science competitions, we have the Envirothon. We do the Fairchild challenges. We have the Fairchild

Environmental Debate. We have Agents For Change, cleat, the CLEO Project, then we also have [the] Science Fair, Science Bowl and the Chemistry Olympiad,” You said.

After noticing she was the only girl at the Chemistry Olympiad, Duran became inspired to increase the number of girls interested in STEM through her organization, STEM Gem.

“STEM Gem is this project I started after going to [Chemistry Olympiad]. I got there and I sat down and this woman came up to me and she said, ‘I’m really happy you’re here.’ And then I looked around, and I was the only girl there. I got back the next Monday to class, and I told Dr. Sharp I wanted to change that, it’s just not right that out of 10 of us I was the only girl at Chemistry Olympiad, ” Duran said. “What we’re doing is… going to elementary schools; right now we’re at Coral Reef Elementary, and we’re doing lessons every Thursday there where we bring a team of girls from the school who love science, and we teach them to the after school care program where there’s between 40 and 80 kids. We teach them a science lesson… we’ve done coding in the past. But we’ve also done chemistry labs, physics labs…, or you know, anything like that. And… the goal is to show them that science is cool, but also show them that there’s a potential for them to be successful in science.”

As society becomes more technology driven, STEM classes and clubs at MPSH are more significant than ever by providing students with the skills and knowledge to succeed. A STEM designation would acknowledge the work that all teachers, students and organizations involved in STEM at MPSH do.

Ava Stuzin News Editor a.stuzin.thepanther@gmail.com

Daniel Perodin Staff Writer d.perodin.thepanther@gmail.com