NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — From exploring the night sky in an inflatable planetarium to measuring the copper content of pennies in a college chemistry lab, students from across Berkshire County visited MCLA for a hands-on opportunity to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics concepts

 

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts welcomed elementary, middle and high school students throughout the week of Oct. 19 through 23 as part of the state's STEM week. 

 

The college serves as the regional center for the Berkshire STEM Network, a state-funded partnership that aims to broaden efforts to expand science education through partnerships with local schools, museums and community organizations, said Ann Billetz, Berkshire STEM network coordinator and MCLA biology teacher. 

 

The week's activities benefited both local students and the college community by providing hands-on learning experiences for younger students while giving MCLA students opportunities to apply their classroom knowledge by interacting with them, Billetz said. 

 

Throughout the week, MCLA welcomed students from Abbott Memorial Elementary School in the town of Florida and Clarksburg Elementary School, and from Hoosac Valley Middle School in Cheshire for hands-on activities exploring astronomy, biology, chemistry and marine science, along with opportunities to interact with college students. 

 

The excitement among younger students was evident throughout the week, Billetz said, recalling a seventh-grade physics activity in which a student correctly identified Galileo during a discussion of Newton's work and later excitedly shared the moment with her teacher.

 

"To see them excited about what they're doing, to have them be able to go home and talk about the experience they had at MCLA is phenomenal," Billetz said. 

 

"The reality of it is, if you want people to be STEM majors in college, if we want to build a STEM workforce, that has to start when they're little. They're not going to be a senior in high school and then suddenly decide to be a STEM major. So, we have to get that excitement and that interest when they're younger." 

 

Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter Public School's Advanced Placement chemistry students also spent Friday afternoon in a MCLA lab measuring how much copper is in a penny using spectrophotometry.

 

One of the goals of this weeklong initiative is to expose students to the potential of careers and opportunities in STEM, MCLA President Diana Rogers-Adkinson said. 

 

Rogers-Adkinson observed the penny experiment and highlighted the region's career opportunities in chemistry, particularly in industries involving chemical formulation and medical applications.

 

"This gives our high school students a chance to explore those as potential fields and consider MCLA at the same time," she said. 

 

The college's STEM outreach extends beyond the weeklong celebration, Billetz said, highlighting things they do throughout the year including the Region One Middle School Science Fair, which brings students from Berkshire County and the Pioneer Valley to campus to present their research. 

 

"We're all an ecosystem that has to work together. I mean, we help provide part of the workforce. We also are the ones who need to make sure we understand from our workforce partners what they need and make sure that we're providing the right folks for the right professions in our region. And so it's a very symbiotic relationship, where we adapt," Rogers-Adkinson said. 

 

The visit to MCLA also gives students an opportunity to explore MCLA's facilities, interact with faculty and experience their teaching styles to determine whether the college is a good fit for them, she said. 

 

The STEM pipeline was demonstrated during the chemistry lab, where former MCLA student and current BArT chemistry teacher Richard LaRocque returned to campus to work alongside his former professor, Carolyn Dehner, to provide his students with hands-on learning opportunities similar to those he experienced in college.

 

"It is one of the most fulfilling moments of my professional life to be doing outreach with one of my former students, who is now a teacher of chemistry," Dehner said. "It is just wonderful. And that STEM pipeline in Berkshire County is strong."

 

A lot of LaRocque's students are very college-oriented and focused on the next phase of their school journey, he said. 

 

"I think that we are consistently and continuing to have a culture of high expectations and high accountability, and I think that bringing students to a classroom where they're being instructed by a college professor is one of the highest expectations that you can put on them," LaRocque said. 

 

"Expecting them to go in there and pick up, and perform at a level that college students are being asked to perform at while they're still in high school really nicely aligns with our ideals of having high expectations for our students."

 

Juniors Griffin Pillmore-Beaulieu and Gineska Vázquez Melendez said the visit to MCLA gave them the opportunity to apply concepts they had learned in their AP chemistry class while gaining confidence in their ability to work in a college laboratory.

 

"I feel like being able to do it in this setting is like a just preempt into things we will experience in college, and it's like a preparation for the future," Pillmore-Beaulieu said. 

 

Melendez said the experience gave her greater confidence in her chemistry skills and a foundation she hopes to build on as she considers future courses and college opportunities.

 

"I feel like generations coming up and how the world is coming around. I feel like younger generations need a lot of opportunities to just be able to survive outside in the world," she said. 

 

Berkshire County is a small community so it is essential to collaborate with other institutions and share resources and expertise to provide more learning opportunities to students, Billetz said. 

 

For example, MCLA provides the StarLab inflatable planetarium through the network's equipment lending library, while Berkshire Museum staff contribute the expertise needed to lead educational activities, she said. 

 

The network also trains teachers to use the equipment in their schools and offers grants to partner organizations to support additional educational programs, she said. 

 

"So by leveraging all of our resources together, we're able to accomplish a lot more," Billetz said. 

 

Berkshire Museum education manager Joseph Mastronardi said the collaboration supports the museum's mission of sparking curiosity and connecting different subjects while giving students an opportunity to learn outside their usual classroom environment.

 

The Berkshire Museum led eight sessions as part of the weeklong initiative, including four StarLab planetarium sessions, two "Science of Color" activities and two "Under the Sea" programs, he said.

 

Second-and third-grade students from Abbott School visited MCLA on Monday, during which they participated in two of Mastronardi's StarLab session and learned about the science of color through the museum's hands-on activities.

 

Clarksburg third graders also participated in StarLab sessions, learning about light pollution and how ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman cultures interpreted constellations. During the "Under the Sea" program, students examined marine specimens, including a whale spine, starfish and pufferfish, before creating squeegee art inspired by their observations.

 

Masinardi emphasized the importance of providing hands-on learning opportunities to second- and third-grade students as they transition from early to later elementary education.

 

He said this stage of development is often overlooked, despite being a critical period when students begin learning more advanced math concepts, such as multiplication and division, and develop stronger observation skills.