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Warren students get hands-on learning

Digging for answers

031518...R DIG 1...Warren...03-15-18...Lincoln PK-8 School 4th grader Caiden Morgan, 9, holds up a 3-D fossil during the archaeological dig Thursday at the school...by R. Michael Semple

WARREN — Fourth-grade students at Lincoln PK-8 School hunted through small mounds for fossils just outside the Warren school on Thursday.

They weren’t looking for just any old fossil, though. These were the products of their fellow students and the school’s newly acquired 3D printers.

Sixth-grade students split into teams to research fossils and their countries of origin. One student from each team was chosen to be a designer and taught, in one-on-one lessons with teachers, how to use the 3D software to create their fossil.

“It was really fun, a bit challenging, but once I got the hang of it, it was pretty easy,” sixth-grader Renn Rohrer said about learning to use the printers. “It was just a lot of trial and error.”

Students also made presentations on the organism and the country of origin to show the fourth graders who found the fossils they made.

Last September, the school received a $7,733 grant to purchase the two MakerBot 3D printers. Christine DePascale, a sixth-grade science teacher at Lincoln, decided to apply for the grant.

“My son’s school got them last year, and they were doing some really nifty things with them,” she said. “So I thought, well, why couldn’t we do something?”

After Depascale and Stephanie Collier, sixth-grade science and math teacher, taught themselves how to use the printer and design software, they started progressively training their students.

“We both had to learn how to work the software,” Collier said. “We watched a lot of YouTube videos and collaborated with some Youngstown State University professors.”

In an increasingly tech-focused world, the school hopes to familiarize students early with technology like 3D printers that could transform the job market by the time they enter it.

“It is vital based on where the jobs are coming from,” DePascale said. “There are jobs out there that these kids don’t even know they’ll be doing in the future. The more STEM we throw at them, the better off they’ll be and more prepared they’ll be.”

With technology steadily advancing, the transformative potential of automation is looming. One 2017 study from the MIT Media Lab found that smaller cities, with their disproportionately high reliance on clerical and service jobs, are more vulnerable to disruption from automation.

The study listed the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman region as at “high risk” from automation, with automation expected to impact 64.7 percent of jobs.

Of course, if this disruption does occur, it is unclear what new types of jobs could be created.

While one common answer to the transforming job market is found in STEM education, the need for more STEM graduates is contested, with some worrying it will come at the cost of other fields of study.

A Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2017 report found that while there was both a STEM shortage and surplus in different sectors, graduates with a bachelor’s degree in biological and physical sciences, science technology, mathematics or agricultural science, all had full-time employment rates closer to non-STEM grads.

But teachers at Lincoln said teaching this technology doesn’t have to come at the cost of other subjects, and exposure to these emerging technologies could prove useful to students with any interest.

“There are a couple of kids whose strengths aren’t in math and science, but they like art. Those kinds of kids we picked to be designers because they can apply their creative skills and figure out how math and science work with it,” DePascale said.

The fossil project on display was one example of how the school can integrate technology with other subjects like anthropology and history.

Janell Richardson, a fourth-grade teacher, said the activity was connected to previous lessons on artifacts and Native American culture.

“The students benefit from the hands-on experience,” she said. “They are working in cooperative learning groups so they are learning to communicate. They are researching, and asking other students questions.”

lbouquet@tribtoday.com

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