This is Berlin HS Technology Teacher Dawn Wetmore’s first year in the Summer STEM Research Institute.
Since 2014, Questar III’s Summer STEM Research Institute has placed local secondary school STEM teachers in local businesses, colleges/universities and research facilities to get hands-on experience in areas related to the courses they teach – providing their students a more authentic education and better preparing them for the world they will encounter after graduation.
Dawn Wetmore teaches grades 9-12 technology at Berlin High School, and in her first year in the program she is spending the summer at Plug Power, Read on to learn about what she’ll be working on there.
Briefly describe your research to someone without a STEM background.
My research involves programming an autonomous fuel cell dispensary for forklifts using an AruCo scan.
What made you want to apply for the Summer STEM program?
Deb Mabey’s professional development workshop (October 2018) describing the program was the motivating factor in my applying for the program.
How do you see this program impacting your instruction and benefiting your students?
This program will impact my instruction and will benefit my students through the breadth and scope of computer science fundamentals I will learn and apply during the course of solving the problem of autonomous fuel cell dispensary.
What are you most looking forward to through the program, or what has been the most beneficial experience for you so far?
The most beneficial experience from this placement is applying computer programming concepts to solve a real-world problem,