BPS celebrates STEM Learning at Annual Region VI Boston STEM Fair

Boston Public Schools (BPS) celebrated the creativity, innovation, and passion of our students at the 79th annual Region VI STEM Fair!

Students presented projects that spoke to the social and scientific issues currently impacting them and their communities.

BPS celebrates STEM Learning at Annual Region VI Boston STEM Fair

Boston Public Schools (BPS) celebrated the creativity, innovation, and passion of our students at the 79th annual Region VI STEM Fair! The Region VI STEM Fair is a wonderful opportunity for students to develop skills, such as collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, developing and testing hypotheses, and data analysis, which all play an important role in our students’ overall success.

STEM is all around us in nearly every aspect of our lives. The City of Boston is home to pioneers in the fields of robotics, biotech, and medicine. Our young people should be immersed in all that our great city has to offer and the Region VI Boston STEM Fair allows our students to express their creativity and learning of key science concepts outside of the classroom.

Students presented projects that spoke to the social and scientific issues currently impacting them and their communities. Among the projects were Planetary Lunar Landing Devices, Wastewater Treatment, Color Choice & Identity, Fire Alarm Safety, Academic Stress & Mindfulness in Seniors, Light Pollution in East Boston, and Cuffless Blood Pressure Devices.

This year, the STEM Fair included:

190 Student Participants
12 Participating Schools
118 Projects submitted for Judging

BPS is grateful to all of our STEM educators who are working every day to foster critical STEM skills in our students and inspire them to apply those learned skills to classroom work and to real-world situations. The STEM Department is committed to continuing to provide programming opportunities for our K-12 students and families throughout the district.

The Region VI Boston STEM Fair Awards Ceremony took place on March 11 at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. The ceremony featured musical performances from students at the O’Bryant School of Math & Science along with a Presentation of Colors by the Community Academy of Science and Health (CASH) JROTC program.

Matolah Dankoff, a Grade 7 Student at Boston Latin School won the Christa McAuliffe Grand Prize for the Junior Division & Cabot Corporation Grand Prize for her project: An Introduction to Hand-Eye Coordination.

Shuting Zhu and Louis Chiu, Juniors at the John D. O’Bryant School of Math & Science won the Christa McAuliffe Grand Prize for the Senior Division, and Sanofi Specialty Care Grand Prize for their project: Cuffless Blood Pressure Measurement Monitor via Pulse Transit Time Analysis and Arduino. They will now represent BPS as the Nominees for the Massachusetts State Delegation for the International Science and Engineering Fair in Columbus Ohio in May.
BPS will also have 23 Middle School projects that will move on to compete at the Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair in May at Clark University, and 14 High School projects will move on to the Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair at Gillette Stadium in April.
The Boston STEM Fair team is grateful to the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center for hosting the 79th Region VI STEM Fair, to the Madison Park Community for hosting the STEM Fair Awards Ceremony, and to the Madison Park Culinary Arts and Hospitality programs, which helped to cater and set up the ceremony.

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07.09.2021 - Draft Plan (ESSER II Funds)

This draft plan, released July 9, 2021, outlines the BPS investment strategy for ESSER II funds, which total approximately $123 million. A final report for ESSER II funds will be issued after the public comment period ends on July 30. Additional reports will be shared as more funding is allocated over the coming months and years.

First page of the PDF file: ESSER_II_Plan_Draft_-_July_9_2021

Translated Plan

Investment Timeline

At this stage of the process, we are planning allocations only for ESSER II funds, totaling approximately $123 million which we will use to help us recover from this pandemic. ESSER I funds have been spent to help us return safely to in-person learning. We heard from our community loud and clear: the majority of the funding should go directly to schools and there should be local decision-making at the school level. It’s critical that educators, parents/families, and leaders - who are the closest to our students - are able to make decisions about what interventions and practices will be most beneficial for our students and schools.

The ESSER II funds will be allocated in the following categories:

50% School Plan Investments
30% District-Wide School Investments
20% Forthcoming Investments

50% School Plan Investments

Initial school allocations are currently being finalized and will be shared with schools in July 2021. Then, schools will be able to work with their communities to determine what investments they believe will be most beneficial to their student body and for their school community. Additional funding may come as a result of greater differentiated analysis.

30% District-Wide School Investments

The process for determining district-wide school investments was designed to ensure that decisions would benefit students in an equitable manner, address priorities and feedback from the community, and lead to student impact.

As a result of engagement with the ESSER team and stakeholders, BPS decided to align the district-deployed investments to the three buckets that DESE outlined:

Academics: investments like standards-based curriculum and a high-quality assessment tool
Social-Emotional Wellness: investments like effective Social-Emotional learning tools for students in grades K-12
Operations: investments like physical building modifications to update classroom learning environments and improve accessibility. The district plans to cover school needs in this bucket, recognizing that in order to allow schools to make what they see as the necessary Academics and Social Emotional investments, some baseline physical space components must be in place. Schools should not be forced to spend money they could invest in their students on physical building needs arising from deferred maintenance or longstanding facility challenges.

20% Forthcoming Investments

In addition to the investments in Academics, Social-Emotional Wellness, and Operations, we anticipate making investments in two additional categories: Cross-School Innovations and Community Partnerships. These two areas of investment are still under development and more information will be available in the fall 2021.