DRSS Welcomes Its Newest Board Member - Joe Sciabica

The Dayton Regional STEM School (DRSS) Governing Board recently elected a local defense industry leader to its board of trustees. Mr. Joe Sciabica, president of Universal Technology Corporation, and former director of the Air Force Research Laboratory, begins his board service this month.

Mr. Joe Sciabica, President of Universal Technology Corporation

Mr. Sciabica joined the the DRSS Board this month after 33 years of credible civil service with the Department of the Air Force.  Mr. Sciabica brings a wealth of knowledge to this position from his time serving with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, and as the current President of Universal Technology Corporation.  He has spent his entire career in STEM fields, beginning with obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, followed by working for the Air Force on rocket, space, air, and cyber systems, and culminating his career with the Air Force across all the disciplines of civil engineering.

We had the opportunity to ask Joe a few questions when he agreed to join the DRSS Board of Trustees:

Q - What excites you most about joining the DRSS Governing Board?

A - Having moved back into the Dayton Region this summer – I’m excited to be rejoining something that I was a part of in the start-up of the Dayton Regional STEM School to begin with.  The Board, the faculty, the staff, the students, the families and the community leaders supporting The Dayton Regional STEM School have done a tremendous job.  The Board is made up of a diverse cross section of members of the public and private sectors from across the region, and I’m excited about being a part of this team.

Q - What unique perspective do you hope to bring to the board?

A - The opportunity to share what I’ve learned across my years working in and leading large organizations which are responsible for STEM products.  I’ve worked or led organizations ranging from the basic theoretical research all the way to applied technology where we integrated technologies from the lab bench into rapidly fielded capabilities, akin to the concepts one sees in the orange juice commercials today – straight from the farm to the breakfast table!  Having hands-on experience across the broad spectrum of technology areas, different levels of research and a knowledge of how folks who possess STEM degrees “go to work” will be one of my contributions to the board.

Q - How do you see DRSS as an important player in fulfilling our Mission of “ensuring our community’s future success?” specifically with regard to preparing students for STEM careers?

A - While STEM is generally viewed as one of the harder degree areas to complete and to keep our youth engaged in, the Arts tend to be just as challenging and contribute wholly to the success of every STEM project I’ve been involved with.  The bottom line is that education is a fundamental underpinning for all things in all areas and disciplines.  We do apply different approaches to teaching at DRSS; immersing students in both the Arts and the Sciences, hence the reason/rationale for a STEM school.  From my time leading research organizations, I saw time and again how no matter what the capability was that we were researching or trying to field – if we didn’t have the academic underpinnings in the STEM related disciplines, the requisite peer group of PhD researchers – we’d struggle to be successful and often times fail.  We’re blessed in this region because we have so many phenomenal colleges and universities within a few hours.  These higher-level institutions have a wide breadth of research that span the broader body of knowledge our STEM students will be a part of.  Our state and local governments are also working to become more business friendly.  Bringing all these elements together, I believe this holds high promise that the Dayton region will once again rise above all others in the nation to be a recognized technological leader.  The Dayton Regional STEM School is an important player in our region's success.

Dr. David Goldstein, President of the DRSS governing board, added, “we are excited to welcome Joe Sciabica to the DRSS Board of Trustees.  With his outstanding service to the Air Force, his longstanding deep investment in advancing the Dayton region, and his passion for STEM education and careers, he will be a great asset in guiding and promoting the school’s mission and vision.”

Women in STEM - Chrissy Horton Interns at WSU

In DRSS's unique career exploration model, students are required to do to do two job shadowing days and at least one 72-hour internship during their Sophomore, Junior, or Senior years. Last year while on a college visit to Wright State University, Chrissy Horton (now a Junior at The Dayton Regional STEM School) got into a discussion with Dr. David Goldstein, Chair of the Biology Department in WSU's College of Science and Mathematics and DRSS. Dr. Goldstein said that during her visit he was "impressed by Chrissy's strong interest in and commitment to studying science" and offered on the spot to help her find an internship opportunity.
  

Chrissy is a junior at the Dayton Regional STEM School

Chrissy followed up on that offer and, as a result, did her internship this past summer in the labs of the Biology Department. Chrissy said she took Dr. Goldstein's advice to heart to "just learn as much as I can." With that mindset she dove right into the the lab's current research topics, assisting the researchers with studies that seek to understand the ways by which cells tolerate the stresses of cold and freezing. The laboratory Chrissy interned with studies an amphibian (frog) species that becomes naturally tolerant of freezing with the onset of cold weather. Chrissy recalls that "they were testing different aquaporins in the lab, which they studied by injecting aquaporins into African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) eggs to figure out how fast water would leave the cells through osmosis." One of the things she learned was "what Aquaporin-9 is," which, she explained, "is a protein that helps the movement of water, and it’s important so the frogs can freeze." For Chrissy, though, the coolest part was the surgery to collect the eggs, because "you don't usually think of surgery as actually stitching skin together, so it was a really cool experience to see that."

Above is a picture of Chrissy holding a pipette and injecting solution into a gel that they made to hold the protein.

During her internship experience Chrissy worked with a combination of undergraduate and graduate students in the lab. She also was able to spend a bit of time observing two labs that work on virology alongside Dr. Katherine Excoffon (whose son attends DRSS) and Dr. Dawn Wooley. This made a big impact on her, and she explained that she learned "how important HIV research was," and was encouraged by Dr. Wooley's advice to "think about college now and realize how important it is to take advantage of every opportunity you can." Chrissy was already interested in HIV research thanks to Ms. Tash's Wellness & Fitness class, but now she is considering a career as an epidemiologist or a genetic engineer so that she can help tackle the problem of HIV/AIDS either in the lab or through public health education. She particularly wanted to study this subject after watching a video in Ms. Tash's class during which she learned that "in many countries people are afraid to go to the doctor because they’re afraid of being exposed to HIV through the doctors, and I want to work to change this." 

Chrissy earned high praise from those she interned with, including Dr. Goldstein, who also serves as the President of the Dayton Regional STEM School's Governing Board and as the principal investigator of the LEADER Consortium, an inter-institutional collaboration between AFIT, Central State, and the University of Dayton aimed at promoting the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women faculty in STEM disciplines. Dr. Goldstein is anxious to have her return, stating that "we hope to have her back in the lab again during her remaining years at DRSS."

When she's not studying, Chrissy enjoys the hobbies of singing, boxing, and track, although she admits that her schedule is "a little too busy for those right now." She is, however, making time to keep up with the Presidential Debates, and is very excited that Wright State will be hosting the first one next year. Chrissy hopes one of her favorite candidates, Dr. Ben Carson, will be on stage then, particularly after being inspired by his movie, Gifted Hands, nearly ten years ago.

In summarizing her internship experience, Chrissy explained that it was "one of the best experiences of my life so far.” She truly appreciated the relationships she built with Drs. Goldstein, Excoffon, and Wooley, as well as their "advice and encouragement." When asked about how she will choose between being a genetic engineer, an epidemiologist, or - her other career of choice - a neurosurgeon, Chrissy explained that she has time to think about it, but that "no matter what I decide to do, I’ll do fully, with everything I have. I'll break barriers and speak up for what I believe in.”

Living Lens Kicks Off New Beautiful Biomes Project

The Living Lens Project is beginning its second iteration of "Beautiful Biomes," a collaborative project integrating art, language arts, and science. Today 9th grade students started out the day by hearing from Wildlife Biologist Mike Enright of Five Rivers Metro Parks about the Woodman Fen, a 33-acre wetlands owned and operated by Five Rivers Metro Parks. Mike spoke to the students about what a fen is and how it came to be created back in 2003 after its conversion from a vegetable farm into a wetlands.

Wildlife Biologist Mike Enright of Five Rivers Metro Parks talks to the students about the Woodman Fen

After hearing from Mike about what a "fen" is, students made the short hike over to Woodman Fen to experience it for the first time and get pictures of the plants and wildlife in the area. Students were specifically looking for interesting patterns that might help them in creating a mural in their art class modeled after the one that was created for the Living Lens collaboration with Newport Aquarium last year.

Students working on the mural that they created last year for the Living Lens Project

Look for more "Great Things" happening with this project this year as the students dive into the project in the coming weeks and months! In the meantime, enjoy the pictures from their visit.

DRSS Team Enterprise Builds Homes Too

The high school robotics team was busy again this weekend - so busy they had to split up to be at two different events! 

Part of the team met on North Fairfield to help build a house for Habitat for Humanity.  Over a span of 4 hours, our team (and a hundred or so others) framed out an entire house. DRSS team members can proudly say that they built 5 of the 68 walls!

DRSS Enterprise team members framing out a window while volunteering for Habitat for Humanity

The window they framed makes a great... well, frame!

The other part of the team met up with three other teams for a strategy session at Starbase in Dayton.  At that session, the teams discussed ways to attack this year's FTC Challenge.  At one point, they had to become "human robots" and act out the strategies they came up with.

Strategy session underway!

Teamwork was the theme of the day, both in terms of preparing for competition and using their skills to help others.

Follow the team on Twitter @DRSSRobotics

Peer to Peer Instruction at DRSS

On Wednesday, 6th graders in Mr. Nelson's science class participated in usability tests conducted by 11th graders. This project began in Ms. Kancler's 11th grade chemistry class, where students were introduced to a water-displacement lab. They were tasked with creating quality procedures/instructions so that 6th graders at DRSS could replicate the experiment on their own, using only the instructions created by the 11th graders.

6th graders work through the lab with their 11th grade counterparts.

11th grader Kyleigh Lutz instructs 6th grade peers.

Peer to Peer Instruction is fun for both groups!

Everyone is engaged.

Water usability gets intense!

Billy Nelson helps 6th grade students set up their lab equipment.

In Ms. McDaniel's 11th grade Technical Reading & Writing the students analyzed examples of instructions and lab procedures and learned the criteria and rules for writing clear, understandable instructions for a specific audience.  They learned about their audience’s science vocabulary, drafted their instructions, tested them on their peers, and made necessary revisions for better usability. Finally, the students learned about different types of usability tests and were tasked with creating their own in order to test whether the 6th graders could successfully understand and use their instructions.  After conducting the tests yesterday, 11th graders will use the feedback to make final revisions to their instructions.

11th graders meet with their 6th grade counterparts to go through the lesson and ensure their audience would understand what they had written. This kind of peer to peer instruction provides an authentic audience for the 11th graders and gives our Middle School students a chance to interact with those in the High School.

Can You Solve The Locker Problem?

Starting their first year at DRSS in 6th grade all the way through their senior year, students are taught using a wide variety of instructional strategies. One of those strategies is inquiry-based instruction, where students are presented with a question or a problem and then learn the skills needed to solve that problem.

In Brittany Shores 6th grade math class students used this method to solve "the locker problem." Students were presented with the following prompt:

Can you solve the locker problem?! Imagine there are 1,000 students and 1,000 lockers that are all closed. Student 1 goes down the row and opens every locker. Student 2 goes down the row and closes every other locker. Student 3 changes the state of ever 3rd locker. Student 4 changes every 4th locker. This pattern continues until all 1,000 students have had a turn. When all the students are done, which lockers will be left open?

Below you can find pictures of some of the ways in which students attempted to investigate this problem in Mrs. Shores' class, followed by a video in which they test out their concept.

Check out the video below to watch as students simulate the locker problem to test out whether or not their math was correct!

For more about what makes instruction at DRSS unique, check out our website!

FTC Robotics Team Kicks Off 2015/2016 Competition Year

On Saturday, our First Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics team, DRSS Enterprise, spent the day at the season kickoff and challenge "reveal" at iSpace in Cincinnati. In the morning, while waiting for the worldwide review, teams from all over Ohio met and traded knowledge, hints, and "war stories." Our team was asked to organize a mentor/rookie "match up" for the teams in Ohio and Northern Kentucky, so they manned a booth all day and collected information from experienced teams and from rookie teams that need mentoring. Additionally, since we are one of the top rated teams when it comes to engineering documentation, Terra, Niky, and Alan were asked by other teams for help improving their engineering journals. 

DRSS Enterprise at iSpace in Cincinnati

When the challenge was finally revealed at noon, our teams were in for quite a surprise. This year's challenge is one of the most complex in years, with plenty of engineering challenges to overcome. To see for yourself, check out the video on YouTube.

And so, the competition season begins!

Senator Peggy Lehner Visits DRSS to Push Matthew's Bill

On Tuesday, September 1st, 2015, Dayton Regional STEM School students held a rally to push for Matthew's Bill, currently labeled SB112 in the OH Senate. This bill was inspired by Jennifer Helton, formerly an intervention specialist at DRSS, and her son Matthew, who has multiple disabilities. Changing him in public restrooms is extremely difficult given the lack of changing tables for adults.

Students in Meghan Durkee's Government Class have been seeking to address this issue by getting legislation passed to fix this issue. They worked with Senator Lehner over the course of the last year to pass the legislation into law, and Tuesday night's rally featured members of the public, including distinguished guest Dr. Tom Sudkamp, Wright State University's Provost, who provided students with feedback on their efforts.

Dr. Sudkamp, teachers, and students discuss the impact of Matthew's Bill and provide students with feedback and ideas on their current legislative efforts.

Students afterwards had time to talk with Senator Lehner one-on-one.

The students' efforts were featured in a story on Fox45/ABC22 that evening. Click here to watch!

The students continue to seek allies for their legislation, and if you are interested in helping them pass this bill into law, please contact them through their website here. For more information on Matthew's Bill, check out their website.

Students Visit Montgomery County Solid Waste District Environmental Learning Center

In the weeks before school started you could find 6th grade science teacher Russ Nelson placing ErgoCans around the school. These cans were paid for with a grant that he and 6th grade math teacher Brittany Shores secured through the Montgomery County Solid Waste District (MCSWD) for $4,500. The cans are made from 100% post-consumer materials.

Mr. Nelson and Mr. McNeal placing ErgoCans around the school this summer before classes began.

Students using these ErgoCans are actually putting products into a recycling stream that turns things like drink pouches, snack bags, and foil-lined energy bar wrappers into messenger bags and backpacks. Each item thrown away is worth between one to two cents. It may sound small, but the money is starting to add up. So far they've converted trash into $236.41 from waste they've sent in.

This is the third year for the "Zero Waste Project," which actually began when Russ and Brittany were interviewing to work at DRSS as an integrated project idea that turned into a reality during STEMmersion. That class was so successful that by partnering with Montgomery County, Russ was able to begin teaching a new Sustainability enrichment course, which he is teaching again for the second year in a row.

The students worked on this logo last year to kick off the Zero Waste Project here at DRSS.

On Tuesday, September 1st, 2015, Russ' class went on one of their quarterly visits to the MCSWD's Environmental Learning Center to take a tour led by Education Specialist Chris Hoffman. There, students were also able to see the tipping floor to learn about how their solid waste and recycling materials are processed.

Students get a look at the tipping floor from the balcony.

Chris Hoffman, Education Specialist, explains the science behind how landfills work.

Chris explains how the "Add It Up" simulator works, which allows visitors to plug in their water consumption per day and shows them how much water they use, as well as how they can reduce their consumption.

Students play the "Sorting Game" where they compete to recycle the most acceptable recyclables and electronics. Students lose points for recycle dirty materials or putting them in the wrong bin as they take them off of the digital conveyor belt.

Special thanks to Chris and the Montgomery County Solid Waste District for taking our students on the tour!

Becoming a Zero Waste School is a monumental task, so Russ and Brittany plan to start up the student "Green Team" again this year soon. They're also looking for parents and partner volunteers to help assist with cleaning compost bins, cleaning receptacles, turning compost, revamping the website, and working with students to help accomplish other goals. They're also looking for a matching grant for the a new "earth tub," a fully-enclosed composting vessel which would allow them to greatly speed up the process. If you're interested in helping, please contact them at russell.nelson@wright.edu or brittany.shores@wright.edu.

Russ and Brittany would like to thank Chris Hoffman, Dan Graeter, and Barb Asberry at the Montgomery County Solid Waste District for partnering with them to become a pilot school for the Zero Waste program and hosting the students for quarterly visits, one of which they'll be taking next Tuesday.

Having already shared their lessons learned at a state-wide environmental sustainable materials conference in Dayton this past summer, they hope to begin to share their curriculum and experience with other schools in the area as well!