Boeing has helped the $15-million STEM NOLA New Orleans East science and education hub make a big step toward reality with a #1-million donation.
STEM NOLA is the brain child of a Calvin Mackie, a former Tulane engineering professor who started by teaching Saturday science classes in his garage.
The STEM NOLA program now reaches more than 125,000 students, the group has expanded beyond just being in New Orleans.
STEM NOLA is collaborating with Florida International University teaching students about the circulatory system ahead of a student project to build a mechanical heart.
Similar teaching engagements have taken place in Mobile and Atlanta.
Ochsner Health has donated property for the new STEM NOLA science center.
Mackie started STEM NOLA with a $100,000 of his own money and has grown since then.
The Department of Defense granted them $2.79-million to expand educational workshops across the Gulf South with the aim of connecting military-connected families.
Speaking with the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate, Mackie says Boeing’s donation "kicked open the door for us to start on fundraising across with nation with other corporations and locally in New Orleans.”
Mackie looks back with pride to one of his early STEM NOLA kids who is now an engineer with Lockheed Martin working on the construction of F-35 jets. The student start by building a rocket in a park with STEM NOLA and it inspired him to greater things.
“We have to get our kids tinkering, building stuff with their hands, critically thinking, asking why it worked, why it didn’t work,” Mackie told the paper. “That's gonna give rise to the mindsets and skills that are needed in the 21st century."
Mackie hope the interest in STEM will become as common as football and basketball for young people.
“For the children of New Orleans to have access to this type of space, and the type of equipment and this type of technology hopefully from cradle to career. I think we could change the trajectory of many families, if not the community.”
