Virginia Western offers summer STEM Academy for Teachers (STAT 23)

Virginia Western Community College’s STEM department is offering professional development opportunities for our K-12 partners this summer. Our STAT 23 program will run from June 12^th to July 31^st. The courses offered within the program are run in a variety of modalities, and with a wide variety of dates and times! Tuition assistance for these courses has been generously offered by Virginia Career Works on a first come, first serve basis! For more information about how to register, please contact Heather Lindberg at hlindberg@virginiawestern.edu

Biotechnology

Biotechnology Basics: Nucleic Acids

This course is a two credit course, and will meet face to face for 3 (MWF) 9-hour days in the lab (2 four hour lab blocks plus lunch break in between), followed by a virtual session a week or so later for sequence analysis and pedagogy discussions. Additional material will be presented in an asynchronous format between the lab days and the virtual session.

Session 1: June 12-June 20^th with labs sessions being on June 13,14,15 at VWCC from 8 am-5 pm.

Teaching a CRE

This course is designed as an introduction to foundational Biotechnology or molecular biology techniques. It is perfect for someone interested in learning about molecular laboratory techniques for the first time, or for someone who would like a refresher on lab techniques such as DNA extraction, PCR, gel electrophoresis and DNA sequence analysis. In addition to the laboratory techniques, several different curriculum-based research experiences will be introduced as ways to incorporate these techniques into novel research experiences for your students!

This course is a one credit course and will meet face to face for one 9-hour day in the lab (2 four-hour lab blocks plus lunch break in between), followed by a virtual session a week or so later for sequence analysis and pedagogy discussions. Additional material will be presented in an asynchronous format between the lab day and the virtual session.

Session 1: June 14 -20 with the lab day on June 16 at VWCC from 8am-5 pm

For more information, please email Heather Lindberg at HLindberg@virginiawestern.edu

Laboratory Culturing Techniques

Are you interested in learning how to culture bacteria and mammalian cells? If so, come and join us, no previous experience required! It is perfect for someone who is curious about how these Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic cells are cultured in the laboratory. This course will teach you the basics aseptic technique, and the processes required for culturing both Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes safely. In addition, we will be performing basic characterization tests on our cultures, such as gram stains for the Prokaryotes and cell counting for the Eukaryotic cells.

This course is a one credit course hybrid course. The course will run from July 7^th -18^th with lab days on July 10, 12, 14^th from 8am-12pm in the STEM building at VWCC.

For more information, please email Heather Lindberg at HLindberg@virginiawestern.edu

Kitchen Science!

So many cool Science experiments can be done with common household materials! This course is designed to provide teachers with the resources and materials needed to run five science experiments that can be done with common materials, in addition to different variations to those experiments to highlight different aspects of the scientific process.

This course is a one credit asynchronous virtual course. The course will run from July 5^th to July 21^st.

For more information, please email Heather Lindberg at HLindberg@virginiawestern.edu

Information Technology

Let’s Build a Robot Buggy: from Code to the Road

Course Description:
That’s right, you are going to build a buggy that is controlled by code! In this class we are going to learn the basics of coding using the Python programming language. As you learn to code, you will be working on several fun projects to showcase your newfound coding skills. You will also learn a little bit of networking. By combining your coding skills and networking knowledge, you will be able to build a buggy that operates on the code you wrote with no wires attached! We welcome educators of all disciplines to join us!

Session 1: June 26-July 7^th with lab days on June 29^th and July 6^th from 9am to 1 pm at VWCC

For more information, please email Jeff Scott at JScott@virginiawestern.edu

Mathematics

Math Inspiration

Using “The Magic of Math: Solving for x and Figuring Out Why” by Arthur Benjamin, as our guide, we will take an inspirational tour of mathematical topics such as Fibonacci Numbers, Pascal’s Triangle, the size of Infinity and other concepts in number sense and counting. This course is intended for teachers of all levels, elementary through high school, who need a little inspiration to love math and then to share this newfound, or renewed, passion with their students.

Session 1: June 20^th– June 29^th. Meet from 9 am – 11 am on June 20^th, 22^nd, 27^th and 29^th. Offered Hy-Flex (Meet in-person at VWCC on those 4 days with Zoom option available and virtual asynchronous assignments as well)

For more information, please email Lauren LaVenture at LLaVenture@virginiawestern.edu

History of Cryptography

Take a step back in time and understand the mathematics of secret-keeping. We will visit the Caesar Cipher, Enigma, RSA public key and other cryptosystems. Our discussions will include the mathematics of encrypting and decrypting a message in the system and how the system is attacked. This course is intended for beginners.

Session 1: July 11^th– July 20^th. Meet from 9 am – 11 am on July 11^th, 13^th, 18^th and 20^th. Offered Hy-Flex (Meet in-person at VWCC on those 4 days with Zoom option available and virtual asynchronous assignments as well)

For more information, please email Lauren LaVenture at LLaVenture@virginiawestern.edu