Advancing futures through educational partnerships that promote STEM and innovation

MC2 STEM HIGH SCHOOL

MC2 STEM High School, established in 2008, is an innovative school within the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. GE Lighting is a proud, founding partner of MC2 STEM High School. Nela Park, GE Lighting's world headquarters in East Cleveland, Ohio, and the first industrial park in the country, is host to the nation's first known high school embedded on a corporate campus. This year-round, project-based, multi-campus school is graduating students at an average of 96 percent per year and is doing so through its hands-on, real-world curriculum, seven core design principles, and its established partnerships, including a partnership with GE Lighting.

For more information: School Website, Edutopia.org

GE employees are passionate about supporting youth and have given more than an average of 2,140 hours of service annually to the students since the partnership began. Volunteers from early career professionals to senior leaders, in all functions, serve as mentors, buddies, tutors and instructors to the students through a variety of programs. GE volunteerism includes, but is not limited to, tutoring, lunches with GE Lighting leadership, career roundtables, life skills seminars, internships, capstone development and support and the largest of the programs, the Buddy Program.

STEM BUDDY PROGRAM

In the STEM Buddy Program, each student or a small group of students are paired with an employee or two who serve as the students’ mentor throughout the year. Buddies meet twice a month for a half hour and discuss everything from career interests and hobbies to sports and university. The program provides students a chance to get advice, network and practice their communications skills.

CAPSTONE ENGAGEMENT

The Grow to Win capstone is an example of GE involvement in the capstone planning process and execution. Every quarter MC2 STEM staff plan a new trans-disciplinary project for the students to engage in and learn from and in each of these projects, GE team members work to provide real-world problems or technology innovations that can support the content. 

In the Grow to Win capstone, students discovered how humans interact with nature in urban ecosystems. The goal was for them to understand the terms sustainable and efficient to apply them to designing improved urban communities and environments.  Students researched green building techniques, alternative lighting, growth options and alternate energy. As a class, students collaborated in both science and humanities classes to draw parallels between physical and social emotional growth within themselves, societal growth within their communities, and biological growth within the environment. The capstone goal is to build and present for an end-of-quarter Exhibition Night to present their ideas to corporations that have the financial means to make an impact on their community.

The GE team, while supporting the project in numerous ways, mainly engaged in engineering class.  Engineers volunteered their time to help the students design planter boxes that would support external manipulation to drive growth internally.  The engineers also educated students on LED, Bluetooth and Arduino technology which they could use to control variables within the planter boxes.  This project was a great way to bring GE’s horticulture technology along with engineering expertise to the classroom.

AMAZON ALEXA SKILLS GROUP

Bringing real-world projects is one of the key components of GE Lighting’s partnership with MC2 STEM.  This year, students have worked with Amazon Alexa and the c by GE Sol in the inaugural Alexa Skills group. Led by Lighting’s Connected Home team members, students worked in the school’s Raspberry Pi lab, that was donated by GE, learning new computer software applications like Python and Codecademy with the goal being a new skill for Alexa. This pilot group and future groups will continue developing their logic and Alexa skills coding techniques.

Want to learn more? Spend a few minutes experiencing the life of a MC2 STEM student in these three videos: 

BUCYRUS TEAM SUPPORTS EDUCATION THROUGH JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT

The Bucyrus Lamp Plant team is proud to engage with local students annually through Junior Achievement, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating youth in topics such as finance, work readiness, and entrepreneurship. Volunteers teach the students about economics and the importance of family and jobs.

In addition to volunteering in the classrooms, the Bucyrus volunteers host students and their teachers in the plant for a day of fun and learning. The students are given the chance to tour the facility and visit stations throughout that engage them in business operations and topics in a game type formats.  Bucyrus volunteers welcome a short distraction to educate the future workforce!

SHANGHAI AND LOGAN SITES DRIVE EDUCATION THROUGH VOLUNTEERISM AND IN-KIND SUPPORT

Team members in Shanghai continue to work with local schools to support key educational volunteer opportunities and in Logan, continue to provide in-kind support of STEM educational tools for high school students.   We are proud to support innovation to all students!