UC receives $3.4M to expand STEM education program

The Cincinnati Business Courier highlighted a University of Cincinnati STEM program that was recently expanded by the National Science Foundation.

The NSF will spend $3.4 million to expand UC's Biology Meets Engineering program to three other universities. The program introduces high school students to STEM using robotics exercises that touch on biology and engineering.

UC’s novel program brings high school students to campus for three weeks each summer to learn about the unique ways animals sense the world and integrates that curriculum into high schools across the Tristate. Students apply what they learn about animal senses to building custom robots that use similar sensory information to navigate.

UC also offers high school students a chance to work in labs as paid summer interns. The other universities likewise will adopt this internship program.

Under the new NSF grant, UC will help Bowling Green State University, Ohio University and the University of Akron develop similar programs to reach more high school students.

Since launching the program in 2018, students from 19 schools have participated, UC College of Arts and Sciences Professor Stephanie Rollmann said.

She developed the program with the help of Associate Professors Anna DeJarnette in UC’s College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services and John Layne in biology and Dieter Vanderelst who holds joint appointments in biology and mechanical and electrical engineering in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science.

Students learn about both robotics and animal senses in UC labs and then apply what they learn to build custom robots.

Read the Business Courier story.

Featured image at top: UC invites high school students to learn more about animal-inspired robots in its popular Biology Meets Engineering course. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand