Manchester Middle School Wins $10K Grant For STEM Classroom

Manchester Township Middle School will be outfitting its STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program with a fully equipped classroom, thanks to a $10,000 Model Classroom Grant from the OceanFirst Foundation.

The school is one of 15 that received the grants, out of 73 that applied.

The new STEM course is being offered at all grade levels as one of the school’s quarterly rotation courses, Manchester Middle School Principal Nancy Driber said. Students in the eighth-grade STEM classes will take part in the SeaPerch robotics experience, which simulates a real-world engineering environment as students build submersible remotely operated vehicles. Students are not only required to build the ROVs, but also to create their own company, assign roles, set goals, track their progress through electronic logs and videos, and present a final project in a multimedia format.

The classroom also will be used by the school’s Young Engineers Club and for weekly mentoring visits by U.S. Navy Engineers from the nearby Joint Base.

The classroom currently being used for the program is not outfitted as a proper STEM lab, so Vice Principal Steve Ninivaggi, with the help of STEM instructor Maura Simister, wrote a proposal for the OceanFirst Model Classroom Grant.

“None of the equipment or furniture needed to support the team-based approach of STEM projects is available,” Ninivaggi wrote in the grant application. “With the grant, they will be able to adequately equip the room with Chromebooks, lab tables, desks, a projector, a small portable pool and additional SeaPerch ROV kits so that students can work efficiently and safely in a space that properly simulates an engineering lab or workshop.”

Driber said that the grant equipment would be ordered as soon as possible and she hopes the room will be outfitted later this school year. In addition to the classroom equipment, a small portable pool for testing the underwater robots will be installed in the school’s interior courtyard.

“This grant means so much to our school and to this program,” she said.“Thank you so much to OceanFirst Foundation for helping us create an advanced STEM lab for our students.”

(PHOTO: Students work on a robot in the current STEM classroom, which will be upgraded thanks to the grant. Credit: Manchester Township Schools)