COLUMBIA, S.C. — On Thursday, Richland County School District Two and Allen University wrapped up their first ever High School STEM partnership. The program was created to support student's success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
Richland District Two and Allen University created this partnership back in April of 2021, aiming to offer professional mentoring to high school students in Richland Two.
"It’s an opportunity for us to showcase that we are strong enough to impact positively schools in the environment," said Dr. Oluwole Ariyo, Associate Professor for Biology at Allen University. "It’s kind of a pipeline to the STEM Program. So, the young folks you see that I've been with for the past few days, they’ve been exposed to different techniques in biology and chemistry."
Dr. Lionel Cross is an Assistant Professor for Chemistry at Allen University. He said this week allowed high school students to take what they've learned in class, and apply it in person, in hands-on labs.
"It really gives them mostly that same opportunity that we wanted to give them," Dr. Cross said. "An opportunity to see what they’ve been learning in class and just don’t get to explore on a deeper level."
Dr. Cross said in total, there were about eight students who were part of the program throughout the course of the week.
The program began on Monday and lasted for four days. Participating students said they learned a lot from the program, and it's been a great opportunity.
"It’s such a great opportunity to just learn how to use our brain and become scientists for a few days and get to experience things that other students don’t get to experience at other schools," said Vone Whaley, a Richland Two student.
Another student told News 19, he was happy to get to expand his knowledge in the subject.
"It opens up to new experiences and allows me to learn things that I wouldn’t learn," said Bradley Rogers, a Richland Two student. "Like today, we’re learning about DNA and we’re actually going to get to see what our genes look like, how strong they are, and where we come from."
Dr. Cross said he hopes to have future STEM programs with school districts and see how they can incorporate the other aspects of STEM into their lessons.
The video below is from a previous story.