On Tuesday, February 6, Ma’ayanot’s sophomore class took their STEAM education to the next level: They went to college! The entire grade visited NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering in New York City. “This trip is another brick in the exciting partnership we have been building with the NYU Tandon School of Engineering during the past year,” explained Gila Stein, co-director of Ma’ayanot’s STEAM program. “Our STEAM teachers, Mrs. Reyce Krause and Mr. Aryeh Tiefenbrunn, attended the ITEST program, a summer engineering institute at NYU, and as part of the program, an NYU graduate student joins our STEAM staff on a weekly basis to enhance the robotics instruction. We have also been consulting with professors at NYU on innovative ways to enhance the design and entrepreneurship aspects of our tenth grade STEAM curriculum.”
The sophomores began their trip with a tour of the NYU MakerSpace. “Much of the university’s technology is available in Ma’ayanot’s Makerspace!” said sophomore Miriam Fisch.
They also toured the Urban Future Lab, a startup incubator for clean energy tech companies that both benefits from NYU professors’ expertise and helps those professors stay current with what’s happening in industry. Pat Sapinsley, the managing director of the Urban Future Lab, urged the students, “Study hard and learn all the STEM you possibly can because the world needs female engineers!”
“It was gratifying to expose our students to a collegiate level makerspace that looks so similar to what we have created in Ma’ayanot,” said Orly Nadler, co-director of Ma’ayanot’s STEAM program. “Early exposure to business incubators, collaborative work environments and fabrication labs can help students envision new career possibilities and value their own varied talents.”
The sophomores learned about NYU’s various summer program offerings for high school students, as well as several unique opportunities that NYU offers to students who want to go into STEAM fields in college. “The NYU students were warm and welcoming, and discussed their projects with our students,” said STEAM teacher Aryeh Tiefenbrunn.
“The fact that NYU has increased its female enrollment in STEAM majors to 40%, almost twice the national average, and that the tours were led by mostly women, was very inspirational to our students,” explained Gillian Cofnas, a tenth grade STEAM teacher.
“The NYU trip really opened my eyes to the world of opportunities available in engineering,” said sophomore Miriam Fisch. “I always thought engineering was just a bunch of people huddled over plans to rebuild the Brooklyn Bridge. However, while at the NYU MakerSpace, I discovered that it is so much more than that. There were women working on build-your-own glasses kits made from cardboard and an automated indoor greenhouse. The technology was incredible.”
Ma’ayanot students were also impressed by NYU’s engineers-in-training who were collaborating to build an automated car. “Nothing seemed impossible in that lab,” said Fisch. “It was all just a matter of what materials you needed to build that dream into an even better reality and change the world in your own way.”
