MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — Mayfield City Schools is adopting a new science- and technology-based approach to education in an effort to prepare children for today’s job market — where medical and engineering professionals are in high demand.
STEM2M is Mayfield’s version of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) initiatives being implemented at schools throughout the country, but it also incorporates medicine (2M).
In the 2014-15 school year, eighth grade students will have the opportunity to take an 18-week elective course dubbed “It’s All About STEM” to prepare them for the STEM classes that will be offered at the high school beginning in 2015-16. The eighth graders will study nine weeks of “Medical Detectives” and nine weeks of “Design and Modeling.”
When they begin the 2015-16 school year as freshmen, the students will be able to choose from a biomedical strand of courses that would count towards science graduation requirements or an engineering strand for elective credits.
Mayfield Schools will also renovate the former Mayfield branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library at 6080 Wilson Mills Road into a “Center for Innovation,” where STEM-based learning will take place.
The $5 million facility will feature both “hard and soft” seating,” a fabrication lab, presentation center and more, according to Assistant Superintendent Joelle Magyar. There, students in STEM-based classes and those taking related courses at Excel TECC technical school will work side-by-side.
But Magyar emphasizes that STEM is more than a place or a strand of courses. “It’s a teaching philosophy,” that encourages project-based learning, research, critical thinking, collaboration and presentations, she said.
“Their future looks a lot different than what ours looked like,” Magyar said about the jobs that will be available for current eighth graders by the time they graduate college.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, STEM-related jobs are expected to grow 16 percent for mathematics-based careers up to 62 percent for biomedical engineering careers throughout the next seven years (see chart below).
The Mayfield School district is home to several businesses in those fields, including Rockwell Automation, Hillcrest Hospital and Parker Hannifin. Magyar said the school has met with many of those companies and mayors of the surrounding communities about STEM.
“The whole idea is to sustain our own community. We want to provide kids with the skills they need to be employable and college-ready when they graduate,” said Magyar, a 1998 Mayfield High School graduate.
Magyar and other district officials, teachers and administrators have been visiting schools that currently offer STEM-based classes and teachers will undergo training this summer. She said the school district will hold a parent meeting in May to discuss the initiative and there will be a STEM information table set up at Wednesday’s science fair.Click here to follow @sara_dorn on Twitter