The YKLI STEM program provides each student with strong math, science, and computer skills, as well as frequent opportunities to apply those skills in complex problem solving. The go
al is to prepare them to become leaders in the STEM fields; we want our students to become life-long learners, with a thirst for knowledge and the requisite skills to seek, research and acquire knowledge.
Our creative faculty employs Smartboards, hands-on materials, activities, and innovative initiatives to help each student maximize his potential. Our experiential, inquiry-driven science program centered on the scientific method provides each student from our youngest to oldest time each week in our Science Lab where they view/conduct experiments. Students connect their learning through visits to science museums and research facilities where they conduct experiments and learn about research that extends their classroom and school lab findings.
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is the natural next step for our vision of our STEM program, challenging our students in domains that have not been explored, allowing them to “be” scientists, “be” a part of a national mission. Because we are such a small school, there is great attraction in being a part of a much larger and nationally important scientific community where rigor and dedication to the scientific method have resulted in interplanetary research. We see the project’s potential to ignite our science program and unite our learning community.
Though the parameters of the project include grades five to eight, indeed, the whole school, 375 plus students will be involved with grade-appropriate classroom scientific projects, patch design, and research which would engage and involve everyone in preparation for the launch.
This will be a life-changing experience, one they will always remember, and, we hope, serve as the inspiration for many of them to enter the sciences and engineering fields.
