The new program invests in expanding learning opportunities for middle and high school students in Huntsville and Madison County.
Huntsville, AL – HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is one of 39 teams in the U.S. to receive an Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies grant (ExLENT). The Institute’s Educational Outreach program will use the grant for the next three years to provide STEM education for local middle and high school students.
“This is an incredible opportunity for our Education program to bring life-changing STEM education to students across Huntsville and Madison County in an innovative way,” Kelly East, Vice President of Educational Outreach at HudsonAlpha said. “We are so thankful to the National Science Foundation for this funding and to our local school system partners. We cannot wait to help students recognize their potential and give them access to new STEM opportunities.”
The award will help fund two experiential learning programs in genomics and biotechnology. It will continue funding for the existing LABS (Launching Aspiring Biotechnology Students) program, a year-long program for high school students to build biotech skills, scientific content and confidence working in the lab. Funding will also be used to provide more participant support, reducing barriers to participation among underrepresented students. The LABS program is open to all high school students in the North Alabama region.
The award will also fund a new SPARK program for middle school students, with similar goals of building biotech skills, scientific content and STEM confidence. SPARK will engage groups of 7th and 8th grade students in a month-long after school club that will take place on local middle school campuses. All participating students in a school year will then be invited to attend a culminating capstone day experience on HudsonAlpha’s campus the following summer.
“We are so excited to kick off this new program that is structured in a way that really pushes the boundaries of student STEM experiences at the middle school level,” East said. “A key part of this program is to let students do authentic experiments that help research happening in real time at HudsonAlpha. These students will become true student scientists in collaboration with HudsonAlpha research scientists.”
Over the next three years, SPARK will be implemented in eight schools in Huntsville City Schools and Madison County Schools, with a focus on bringing STEM opportunities to underrepresented students. If successful, the goal is to expand the program across the area and into more schools and school systems in the future.
This is HudsonAlpha’s second ExLENT award. ExLENT is an NSF program that invests in experiential learning programs across three distinct tracks: explorations, beginnings, and pivots. This recently awarded project is the Explorations Track. Last year HudsonAlpha Education was awarded a Beginnings Track grant to develop the Biotech Launch program.
This most recent award adds another valuable learning experience available through HudsonAlpha’s Educational Outreach team, which offers in-school, after-school and summer programs for K-12 students, professional learning opportunities for K-12 educators, biotechnology workforce development initiatives, digital and hands-on teaching tools, as well as educational events for the public. . HudsonAlpha’s education mission aims to inspire tomorrow’s bioscience workforce while building a more genomics-literate society. Learn more about HudsonAlpha Educational Outreach here.
