There's not been a lot of activity on this blog for Fusion MKIV, I will admit. What I'm hoping, is that this post gets some wider circulation because, as we jack into the matrix full time, we need help. Let's back up and give some background.
Fusion is a cohort of grade 10 students at St George's School who devote their year to exploring STEM fields and skills in a myriad of ways. This is the fourth year of the program, hence Fusion MKIV. The boys take a number of classes together and work toward a major assignment that, loosely, has them identify and try to solve a real problem in the world that can be solved (or improved) through the use of STEM skills and understanding. This year's group is looking at issues such as automating plant health, autonomous and empathetic social care workers, adaptive and modifiable computer keyboards, use of CRISPr technology for identifying and attacking viruses in the body, and a public awareness app for skin care health.
Here's the problem. We typically share these out in two ways over the course of the Spring. First, the students host an evening at the school where the projects are shared with parents, faculty, and anyone else in our school community who wishes. Given the wide area of expertise of our parents (many who are associated with our local universities or in a STEM industry) and our faculty, this is an outstanding first round of public feedback for the students to get different perspectives on their work so that they can further iterate and refine. Then, we take the show on the road. We do a year-end trip that coordinates with an engineering outreach program at a university in Canada where the students spend some time showing their work to university faculty and STEM industry experts. Finally, there are sessions on that trip that help the students explore futures for their project, whether that be turning it into a business, exploring research opportunities, or entering design competitions. Many of the boys have taken this experience and leveraged it in their senior years at the school by starting a business, entering science fairs, or taking their developed process skills to explore additional projects.
In a time of COVID-19, we are clearly not able to leverage the face to face opportunities that we have used in the past. There will be no sharing evening at the school, and there certainly will not be a trip across the country to talk with university experts. The students are at home working diligently on their projects. In some cases, these projects have become a full time endeavour as so much time has been freed up from other activities. I'm seeing evidence of some of these projects being taken to a level I've not seen before. What we need is that expert feedback. We need conversations with the students. We need different perspectives on the work that the students are doing.
If you are someone or know of folks who might be willing to give some of their time to the students, please contact me at mcrompton@stgeorges.bc.ca. I don't yet know what the format of that conversation take. It might simply be reading a few blog posts and commenting. Each of the boys keeps a record of the project on their own blogs (the links to each blog are in the right sidebar of this blog's homepage.) It might be someone presenting in an online meeting to the group on more general topics related to their projects. Right now, I am very flexible with how we might work and I'm simply looking for people keen to give of their time. Please share this post and contact me if you feel you have STEM, business, or other expertise that you might be able to share! mcrompton@stgeorges.bc.ca
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