Muscogee County Schools, CSU to receive $4M to expand K-12 robotics programs
The Coca-Cola Space Science Center will get a $4 million expansion to bolster its robotics programs for Muscogee County students.
The initiative was included in the Omnibus Bill that was passed by Congress in December, Sen. Jon Ossoff and U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop announced Thursday. The money will help expand access to STEM curriculum in the region.
Columbus State University and the Muscogee County School District sent in a joint request to Ossoff and Bishop to expand the space and science center and access to robotics facilities for K-12 students, Ossoff said. The initiative is also meant to increase the collaboration between Muscogee County Schools faculty and the subject matter experts at CSU, he said.
The elected officials worked together in their respective congressional houses to get members of both major political parties to back the initiative, Ossoff said.
“It is so clear that to be experts, and to realize the full potential that belongs to the young people, they have to start early,” Bishop said. “You can’t start in the STEM disciplines in high school. You have to start in the lower grades.”
This funding is the culmination of several years of discussion between CSU officials and Muscogee County Schools, said superintendent Dr. David Lewis.
“We had established a small STEM center but quickly outgrew that,” Lewis said.
Officials began looking at expanding the programs to ensure there was equity for all of the schools and students, he said. The robotics program began a few years ago with five teams, Lewis said, and has now grown to almost 60 teams within the Muscogee County School District.
“This is not something that we just started in the last couple years,” Lewis said. “We’ve been growing our robotics programs based on the interest of students.”
About Muscogee County Schools’ Robotics Programs
Every elementary and middle school student in Muscogee County is already participating in the center’s robotics program, said Tina Cross, the robotics coordinator for Muscogee County School District. Cross is currently working on expanding access to students in high school.
The funding they received will go towards a new facility, expanding access to the programs and professional development of teachers.
“We need a facility,” Cross said. “These (robotics) competitions go up to the world level. We need room for the robots.”
Currently, the county doesn’t have anywhere that can adequately provide space for the robotics programs and competitions, she said. Additionally, funding will also go towards expanding the room in the Coca-Cola Space Science Center to make room for an interactive museum.
“We have a quarter-scale model of the Space Shuttle that is in storage because it won’t fit in the building,” she said.
The robotics programs currently in place begin teaching children in pre-k and kindergarten by playing with Lego blocks and learning colors and shapes, Cross said. Once students reach the third grade, they become “First Explorers” and learn with basic robotics kits. From there students learn with more advanced robotics kits until they reach high school, where they can build full size robots.
The registration to compete in robotics competitions range from $600 a year for the younger students to $50,000 for the most advanced. Cross expects the additional funding to help her get the program to more high schools in the area.
Along with the facility and programs, Cross said, there will be professional development for Muscogee County teachers and Columbus State University professors.
“Part of our teacher professional development is to develop lesson plans for the normal classroom that we will post online,” she said. “And teachers from all over the county can access them and use them in math classes, science classes and English classes.”
Science scores in the district are improving, Cross said. While this improvement can’t be only contributed to the robotics programs, she said, students are excited about the subject when they participate in the activities.
A robotics competition will be hosted at Spencer High School on Saturday, Lewis said, where nine of the 16 teams competing will be from Muscogee County schools.
“Science is life,” Cross said. “Science is living. I’ve got two robots at my home. One vacuums our pool and one of them vacuums the house. Robots are here.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 2:22 PM.
