About the website
The program will be technologically based upon a web application and website; Urbannature4kids.com. The main purpose of the program is to expose low income public school students to lucrative environmental career fields that involve STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). The program will allow students to have a better understanding of what they want to do prior to being accepted into college. Also environmental career fields will allow students to learn about the environment, the earth, and economic sustainability. The program will expose students to the realm of environmental justice issues such as water pollution, air pollution, environmental hazards, and prevention of man-made disasters, natural disaster preparedness, recycling, reducing carbon footprint, and renewable energy. The students will not only be exposed to lucrative career fields but there will also be options within the career fields to help their community environmentally.
The website and mobile application will display information and mini educational games such as pop quizzes and matching for lower grade levels. The program will be beneficial to public schools and for children when they’re outside of school. The public school system will be the primary avenue of participation but students will be able to access the website and mobile application outside of school and will be accessible 24/7 and 365 days a year. In order to test the effectiveness of the program there will be a pilot program for Flint public school children who are in grades K-4. The goal of the program will be to expand to other school districts such as Detroit. The mobile application and website will have information and games based on age appropriateness for elementary aged children. The website and mobile application will be designed for media elementary special classes. Specials in elementary schools are art, music, media, and Spanish.
There is a need for students that reside in low income communities to have an adequate understanding in mathematics and science terminology. The current M-step test scores in the state of Michigan reflect the urgent need of STEM education reform.
Sources:
1.Mischooldata.org. (2019). Grades 3-8 Assessments: Scaled Scores. [online] Available at: https://www.mischooldata.org/DistrictSchoolProfiles2/AssessmentResults/AssessmentGradesScaledScore.aspx [Accessed 9 Mar. 2019].