February 27, 2020 - Ponce, Puerto Rico - With the interest of providing informal STEM learning activities to children and youth in the most affected areas of the Southwest, the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust (PRSTRT) and its STEM Education Program created the initiative STEM en tu Pueblo with the support of the Angel Ramos Foundation to make it available to educators and their communities. The initiative began on February 15 and will run until March 21, 2020.

“After the earthquakes that were experienced in the southern area during the last months, it is estimated that there are more than 5,000 children and youth whose educational services have been affected.”, explained Jorge Valentine, director of the STEM Educational Program of the PRSTRT. “Thanks to a donation from the Ángel Ramos Foundation, we approached the #EducamosDondeSea project who serves over 300 students from the south. For them, we coordinated STEM workshops aimed at elementary school students. We also offer Virtual Reality workshops open to young people between the ages of 13 and 16 in our office located in Ponce. This is an excellent way to engage our teenagers with technology used for design and game development as an alternative for skills development during the difficult time they are experiencing.”

The two-hour long STEM Workshops consist of fun experiences where participants connect with scientific concepts through observations, demonstrations, and experiments that promote curiosity and self-efficacy. They will be carried out in the #EducamosDondeSea Project in Las Delicias II Park in Ponce are offered twice a week and have a capacity of 20 participants per session.

In addition, STEM en tu Pueblo offers Virtual Reality Workshops; interactive workshops that serve as an introduction to virtual reality environments and digital literacy, using design and play as a platform for learning. These workshops are open to the public at the PRSTRT Office in Ponce. They have two sessions one at 9:30 a.m. and another at 3:00 p.m. They last two hours and are being offered only on Saturdays with capacity for 24 participants per session. You can register at https://stemsur-vr.eventbrite.com

STEM is the acronym for the terms Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; and has been created to promote the joint teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics that are the basic subjects for engineers and scientists.

STEM en tu Pueblo is expected to reach more towns in various communities and projects in the southwest area of ​​the Island. For more information about the program or to bring it to your town you can access prsciencetrust.org/stem