Selection Criteria

Students will be selected based on merit (accounting for demographics); the students have to meet the following criteria:

• Students with grades B-80% or better
• Standardized Assessment System grades will be taken into consideration
• One page essay on “why eCYBERMISSION STEM project is important?”
• Completed application

A panel consisting of SSU faculty members and SCCPSS teachers will rank the students. Lastly, a personal interview with the student and parents will result in final selected students for the program.

SSU faculty members, school teachers and parents will act as team leaders and will help students to solve community problems. Designated teams will work with 6^th -9^th grades students on weekends (Saturday) during the entire academic year; additionally, students will also be engaged online. The eCYBERMISSION program will be founded on design-based learning which incorporates curricula with active learning. The method of teaching will be by instructions; here students will be engaged in solving community challenges. Our approach will be based on a five-step cycle that includes:

1. Hands-On Technology Exploration: We will introduce a technical subject to participants thereby providing an opportunity for them to put learned theory into practice, that is, to identify science, mathematics, and engineering principles and implement them into their everyday lives.
2. Interactive Discussion so students can fully understand principles illustrated by the technology which generates rich discourse concerning the underlying science and mathematics concepts.
3. Conducting Experiments in Laboratories that will enable participants to investigate and test engineering and scientific principles; this is a crucial step in learning to solve design problems.
4. Open-Ended Design Problems that feature design, prototyping, and testing allowing the participants to apply science, technology, engineering and mathematics concepts to solve a problem.

Reflection in which participants gain experience through explaining technical concepts and describing their design solutions, thinking and planning processes, teamwork and how they use the scientific and engineering principles.