Savannah River Nuclear Solutions boosted its financial support to area schools last week, by adding a $9,000 donation to support robotics programs in Aiken County Schools.

SRNS has a sincere passion for supporting education outreach initiatives, year-round, throughout the CSRA, said SRNS Education Outreach Program Coordinator Kim Mitchell. Its at the primary and secondary levels of education within area school systems that our future leaders and the Savannah River Sites future employees are nurtured, shaped and prepared for life as an adult.

The new funding adds to the annual $20,000 SRNS gives to Public Education Partners. Mitchell said the additional $9,000 in funding is being used by PEP to assist science, technology, engineering, arts and math, or STEM/STEAM magnet schools Jackson Middle and New Ellenton Middle schools in Aiken County. The new funding is directed at helping jump start the student robotics programs.

Robotics programs have been springing up at a number of area schools, including the North Augusta High School team that travelled to the state competition in its first year.

Mitchell believes a cost effective method to deepen students interest in STEM-based courses is to intrigue them with robots. She said working in teams to build, program and compete with robots greatly increases student interest and participation in math, engineering and the sciences.

Ive always been interested in computers and programming, said Logan Hopson, an eighth grade student at Jackson Middle School. Working with robots gives us hands-on experience and hands-on building. Its a completely different perspective related to learning.

STEM and STEAM programs work, said New Ellenton Middle School Principal Shunte Dugar. The impact STEAM-based curriculum has had on our faculty and students have been nothing short of amazing. It is revolutionizing current educational theory, while evolving into a new questioning, tactile method of learning based on collaboration and discovery. We could not be more pleased with the results.

Jackson Middle School recently earned national accreditation for our STEM program, one of only 54 in the world today, said Kishni Neville, JMS STEM Coordinator. I believe a lot of the credit for this incredible accomplishment goes to SRNS for their long-time support, both financially and through their employees who regularly volunteer to help us.

Reach Thomas Gardiner at (706) 823-3339 or thomas.gardiner@augustachronicle.com.

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SRNS jump starts robotics programs in two Aiken County schools - The Augusta Chronicle