Community Outreach
Community Outreach Program: Planetarium
This system utilizes a digital projector system for a 360-degree field of vision (hereafter referred to as “the projection system”) on a dome screen. This projection system will add another dimension to the learning process using visual simulation software.
The 5-meter dome will seat 20+ students at a time. This technology has a tremendous “Wow” impact and will help the students, especially the “visual learners.”
The students can see the correlation between previously learned material and new material to help in knowledge acquisition and developing critical thinking/problem-solving skills.
Selected STEM material suitable to be played on the dome planetarium screen will cover aviation, oceanography, aquatic/marine ecology, geology (earth science), physiology/anatomy, and space flight.
We currently have a 5-meter inflatable planetarium that we use in our Renewable Energy Sources Camp and in our Community Outreach initiative.
We use hands-on class projects/displays along with the 5-meter planetarium.
The planetarium is an important and popular educational teaching tool for reaching STEM students at different remote locations in our rural community outreach program. It is a mobile, inflatable, and small (5-meter) Planetarium.
Drone ACE Camp
This is a proprietary 18-hour course written by an IBX STEM staff for 5th-7th grade students. The flexible curriculum can be used as either an afterschool course or a one-week in-person community outreach summer camp course. We currently conduct 5-7 of these drone camps each summer as part of our community outreach initiative and the demand is increasing.
Drones are becoming an important tool in the military, civil, national security, law enforcement, environmental, marine research/exploration, petroleum and agricultural/farming applications. Exposing youth to this type of technology is critical to preparing them for the future.
Unmanned aerial and underwater drones are robotic devices that require aerodynamic knowledge and unique skill sets to operate. The camp is conducted on Monday-Thursday for 3 hours per day.
On Friday, the students spend a day at our STEM facility at the Washington Warren Airport. The students will fly a desktop flight training device, a full motion airplane simulator, and look at a real airplane. They will also learn about drones related careers. This curriculum for this program will provide:
- Autonomous programming with a “hands-on/minds-on” learning experience
- Technological problem-solving skills to complete the camp
- STEM topics will include the Archimedes Principle, Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion, Bernoulli
- Principle, four forces of flight, and the 3 Axis of flight; remote-control airplanes and a hot air balloon flight.