Yesterday our PIE program received the "Be the Change for Kids" Innovation Award! This award was developed by the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering with the New York State School Board's Association. Three schools were chosen from dozens of districts that applied from across the state. The award comes with a $5,000 grant for the PIE program which will be used to enhance the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) component of the PIE curriculum. To see a video clip of our trip click on this link:
"Be the Change" Innovation Award
The judges were impressed with Warwick's PIE program, stating, "This program successfully engages parents in their children's education, and does so in a creative fashion with parents working with the kids on solving a problem, making presentations and/or researching materials for instruction." Professor Dean Fuleihan spoke to all the students yesterday and told the 3 winning schools that one of the reasons the judges selected their schools as award winners was because their school programs foster cooperation and citizenship. The judges felt that these two qualities were very important for someone who works in the field of science because scientists work together on projects for long periods of time to see how things work.
Some of our PIE students took a tour of the college and got to see what scientists do all day. Students visited biology labs and saw a scientist studying cancer cells under the microscope. They also viewed chemistry labs and the nanoscale science "clean rooms." The kids got a kick out of seeing the scientists wearing their head-to-toe white suits, "They look like astronauts!" However, they learned that when you are working in a clean room you have to keep any dirt and dust particles from floating in the air, otherwise, they can get into the small silicon chips that the scientists work on. There were many different types of machines to see, everyone's favorite was the machine that carried the nanochips from one room to another. The tiny chips were placed into a box that ran along tracks in the ceiling overhead!
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| Bus ride |
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| Lunch outside- we loved the shape of the buildings! |
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| Our tour guide showing the kids an enlarged picture of the inside of a computer chip |
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| The "Clean Room" |
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