NORTHGLENN, Colo. — The STEM program at Northglenn High School is making a difference for their students by helping the community solve real-world problems.
The high school, in the Adams 12 5-Star School district, started their STEM program in 2012 to change the way they were teaching in the classroom.
Eric Hotz is the STEM coordinator for the school and said they thought it might be a way to increase the graduation rate.
“(We) thought about things a little differently that’s (also) very hands on learning,” Hotz said. “At that time, we were at like 69 percent graduation rate and the last 3 to 4 years, we’ve been over 90 percent.”
Hotz said the school was seeing a decline in enrollment and serving mostly students of color. The hope was that the STEM program would provide opportunities to think about college careers based on their three specialized pathways: biomedical science, computer information systems and engineering.
“Our students maybe don’t have the family means to be able to do those sorts of things and the financial means,” Hotz said. “We’re over 80 percent minority students, we have a large number of first-generation students, and migrant students and we also have a large number of free and reduced lunch, but those things shouldn’t determine your success.”
The school uses a problem-based learning approach and students get real world problems to solve from community partners like the Denver Zoo, the American Heart Association and Red Cross. Hotz said the goal is to provide students with 21st century skills.
“We have over 800 partners who we work with,” Hotz said. “They’re bought into the model that we have; they’re bought into the population that we serve and that’s really what makes a difference, and they really want to give back to the community at large.”
Emmy Bui is a senior at Northglenn and is a first-generation student. Her parents moved here from Vietnam to find a better life for their children. Bui is part of the school’s engineering pathway and said the STEM program is helping her pursue her dream of studying biomedical engineering.
“My parents fought really hard to for us to be where we are right now, they sacrificed a lot in their lives for their kids,” Bui said. “They achieved their goals, and I want to achieve my goals just like them and work just as hard as them.”
“The STEM classes really help you define what you want to do in school,” added sophomore Jehovanka Guevara. “It was really nice to figure out that they have special classes for different categories that you want to go into.”
Guevera is taking classes in the biomedical sciences pathway where students research various health conditions including heart disease, diabetes, and infectious diseases. She said she wants to be a doctor and taking the STEM classes is preparing her for the real world.
“Your senior year, you do a capstone project where the biomed kids work together with the engineering kids to construct something that will solve a real-life world problem,” Guevera said. “It makes me feel a little nervous that something that I made might be used in the real world but it’s really cool that my work might someday be out there.”
According to the school pathways students can also earn college credits starting their freshman year of high school working with colleges and universities like CU, CU Denver, MSU Denver and Western Colorado University. Hotz said after students graduate, he hopes the students will have a sense of pride in their alma mater.
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“We want to create those leaders that are really creating these opportunities for other people,” Hotz said. “I think they see that we have a lot of partners that are willing to give their time, energy and money and effort to us so we’re definitely seeing now students come back and they want to be involved.”
For more information about Northglenn High School’s STEM program, click here.
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