It’s been 6 months since we have last worked with Washington, DC Public School (DCPS) students. We have been away for the first half of the 2016-2017 school year as our director was becoming familiar with his new job. Now that his schedule is settling down, it is time to begin again! We are preparing to start lessons again at Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, DC in January 2017. Since the end of the 2016 school year there have been 4 important changes to the FiLS program and its team.
1. First, let’s welcome the Board of Directors. The board will serve alongside the FiLS Director and help guide the FiLS program as we reach more K-12 DCPS students with meaningful, memorable, exciting and educational STEM lessons. The members of the board are Keisha Ashe PhD, Harrison Beacher, Lindsay Beacher, Elizabeth Tuck MA, and Allison Williams MBA.
2. Their first act of the board was the creation of one page documents explaining how volunteers, donors, schools and other organizations can work with FiLS. All one pagers can be found on the home page at www.FiLSProgram.org.
3. Starting in September of 2016, FiLS Director Dr. Christopher Williams began the prestigious AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, where he is placed at the National Science Foundation. The fellowship gives PhD level scientists the opportunity to work and learn in the federal government, while using their scientific knowledge and analytical minds to contribute to federal policymaking.
4. Lastly, we are broadening and improving FiLS lessons and instruction. In the past, lessons were largely biology-based. Now, students will address modern day societal problems using a combination of engineering, chemistry, biology and other strategies and approaches. Our goal is to have students understand how to manipulate and measure the world around them using a variety of approaches.