The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) on May 4 joined local school leaders and elected officials at Brockton High School to announce nearly $800,000 in funding to improve science courses, and provide new equipment and supplies for students in public schools in southeastern Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts’ flourishing life sciences community has created opportunities and spurred economic growth in every region of the state,” said Governor Charlie Baker. “These grants from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center will further strengthen our workforce in order to meet the needs of this growing industry through enhanced training facilities and programs at our middle schools and high schools.”
Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School in Rochester received a $93,620 grant from the MLSC that will support the implementation of “Engineering the Future,” which will create a bridge between the academic and vocational programming at Old Colony. Students will engage in an inquiry-based problem solving approach that will actively engage them as learners. The funds will purchase tablets and other touch-screen devices so students can engage in industry-standard training in programming for mobile devices. The school will partner with Bristol Community College to provide students with access to high-level training and credits toward a college degree.
Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School received $99,666 to equip a Life Sciences Engineering Lab where students can learn through hands-on experiences. The grant will benefit both the students and the teachers through a mix of hardware, software and textbooks that will enable various STEM experiments. The school will acquire new work stations for students, including 12 “zSpace” work stations that produce high-definition stereoscopic 3D images that students can examine from all angles and manipulate in six different degrees. The school will also acquire 12 other workstations equipped with standalone wireless interfaces for collecting data, with built-in graphing and analysis.