President Obama wants 1 million STEM graduates by 2022. Harold Knickle wants them now.
For more than 20 years, the University of Rhode Island chemical engineering professor emeritus has orchestrated a summer program to bring engineering into the high school classroom. Targeted at students traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields, the program has touched more than 500 young people and sent at least 100 to URI engineering programs.
“If you want to increase the number of diverse students in engineering, you have to start at a lower level than 12th grade,” Knickle says.
Knickle visits students during the weeklong program and talks engineering fundamentals. He often takes a demonstration in tow and then brings the show on the road to local engineering facilities and the URI Kingston campus. On campus, students don lab coats, conduct lab experiments and tour campus. The URI Water Resources Center pays for the transportation, supplies and staff to ensure students can attend regardless of their finances.
For the past few years, the program, now known as the Clean Water Academy, has served students at Times Squared Academy, a charter school in Providence, R.I. that specializes in teaching science and mathematics. Science teacher Mark Fontaine says the program marked many students first time on a college campus.
“We get kids on a college campus doing research,” he says. “That’s huge, especially for inner-city high school students who don’t always have that opportunity.”
One student, Brianna Geyer, of Providence, derived a science fair project from the program. With the help of Knickle, she studied water filtration systems and their deployment in developing nations. Her project garnered second place at the Times Squared science fair.
Her classmate, Keyla Batista, of Providence, participated in the program for three years and hopes the experience delivers an edge during the college admissions process.
“This experience I put at the top of my resume,” she says. “It’s a win-win. You learn science and you get an advantage.”