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Kettering U Lands $40,000 Grant for K-12 STEM Camps

With the help of a $40,000 grant from a private contributor, Kettering University will extend a pre-college STEM camp partnership with a Flint elementary school.

With funds coming from the General Motors Foundation, the university will offer robotics and STEM day camps for students in grades 1-5 at Durant Tuuri Mott (DTM) Elementary School. The on-campus camps will vary in length from 2-6 hours, depending on the age of participating students.

Students in grades 1-3 will participate in the Junior FIRST Lego League camp, dubbed "We Do Mechanical Objects," where they'll work with motors, gears, pulleys and sensors. Students in grades 4 and 5 will participate in the FIRST Lego League camp, where they will build an EV3 robot using a kit and then program it with Mindstorm software.

"It will be very exciting for the students to be able to see the practical application of STEM education. It's appealing for kids to be able to see all the pieces come together. Hopefully it will spark some sort of interest in robotics or science," said Shelly Umphrey, principal at Durant Tuuri Mott, in a prepared statement. "The partnership with Kettering is a great way for the students to get exposure into science and engineering career fields. The more they are exposed generates interest into career fields they might not have known existed."

"The purpose of this partnership is to ignite a passion and to excite young students to get involved in STEM activities and to inspire and motivate lots of students and teachers to join and/or form FIRST Robotics teams to get involved in after school," said Bob Nichols, director of Kettering's FIRST Robotics Community Center, where the camps will take place, in a prepared statement. "We hope to establish a relationship with the faculty, principal and community school director at DTM and other local schools to play an active role in getting kids excited about STEM."

About the Author

Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].

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