Steel Valley High School sophomore Adolphus Hamilton and his partner, Bret Nowowiejski, are working on a plan to revitalize part of Homestead, but in order to put their engineering, art and analyses into a proper presentation, they needed to build a STEAM lab at the school—so they did.
“Yeah we used out grant to renovate and old wrestling room in the basement,” said Hamilton. “It’s pretty cool now. And we can attract more students and do more work.”
The highlight of the showcase was the presentation of awards to students who had excelled in demonstrating the benefits of STEAM to their schools and communities.
Former Pittsburgh Steeler and Steel Valley Graduate Charlie Batch returned for a second year to present the awards. He called it important work and thanked the AIU and the foundations for their support.
“When I came here last year, I didn’t know what to expect and I was totally blown away by what these students could do. And we’re now looking at STEAM as part of what we do at the Best of the Batch Foundation,” he said. “So when they asked me back this year, I said, ‘I’m there.’”
One of the award winners, Dominic Cook a 9th-grader from the Clairton Area School District, said without the STEAM award his school won—and used to create its own Internet-based news and school events webcast, he wouldn’t be the outgoing confident individual he is today, because he anchors it.
“It’s like Fox or CNN without all the yelling,” he said. “And a lot of students watch it. It gives me the experience of talking in front of people and that is great because at sometime, you have to sell yourself. Plus it’s cool when a 1st-grader walks by and says, ‘Hey you’re Dominic from the news show.’”
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
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