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Host of local middle, high school students participate in STEM enrichment at Clarkson northcountrynow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from northcountrynow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
POTSDAM â In January, a team of researchers and staff at Clarkson Universityâs Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries completed a year-long invasive species research project in Denningâs Point State Park in Beacon, NY.
The team was awarded a $20,000 grant in Spring 2020 to address a common problem on parks and preserves: invasive plants requiring strategic management to protect rare plants and important habitats. The project was contracted by the Lower Hudson Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (LHPRISM) with funds from the Environmental Protection Fund as administered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
For the first time in more than 10 years, Denningâs Point Park was surveyed for invasive and rare native plants as a partnership between Clarksonâs Beacon Institute and Hudsonia, a non-profit environmental research institute. This project provided an update to a biological survey conducted by Hudsonia at Denningâs
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Using the Hudson River as a natural lab for learning, Clarkson’s Beacon Institute connects local students to STEM activities. In the US, jobs in the fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) have a supply and demand problem. Due to an array of trends, including the creation of new types of jobs that require STEM skills and lower graduation rates for STEM degrees, there are currently too many jobs and not enough qualified candidates to fill them. This issue was the crux of the last two reports on the state of STEM education from the President s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), published in 2018 and 2012. As both reports acknowledge, the solution isn t as simple as just getting more college students to stick with majors in STEM though that does certainly help.
click to enlarge All images courtesy of Clarkson University For families and schools in the Hudson Valley, the last year has been tumultuous to say the least. With the introduction of full-time remote learning and limited in-person classes, creating meaningful educational experiences for students has never been more challenging. Despite it all, the team at Clarkson’s Beacon Institute remains committed to providing educational programming for students and school systems that help ignite interest in science in kids of all ages. “New York and the US face a shortage of millions of STEM workers,” says Asher Pacht, Director of Environmental Programs at the Beacon Institute. “Our goal is to inspire young people to enjoy, pursue, and s