Spectrum News: High school students learn STEM in UC program

Biology Meets Engineering introduces students to animal-inspired robotics

Spectrum News highlighted a University of Cincinnati summer program designed to introduce high school students to STEM fields.

In its third year, UC's Biology Meets Engineering program teaches UC students about animal-inspired robotics, drawing from both UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science and UC's College of Arts and Sciences.

UC students take the class for course credit while faculty offered a three-week course in June to introduce the concepts to high school students.

Program director Stephanie Rollmann, a professor of biology, said now more than ever researchers in both biology and engineering collaborate with other scientific disciplines.

A screenshot of Hosanna Otchere's interview on Spectrum News.

High school student Hosanna Otchere talks to Spectrum News about UC's Biology Meets Engineering program. Photo/Spectrum News

“I think that people nowadays should think about being cross-trained," Rollmann told Spectrum News. "So our program needs engineering really is about looking at how engineering can be used to understand biology better and how biology can help us engineer and design things better.”

High school senior Hosanna Otchere said the summer program won her over. She plans to pursue a science program in college.

"It definitely pushed me into STEM," Otchere told Spectrum News. "This confirmed that I want to do it."

Watch the Spectrum News story.

Featured image at top: High school students work on an animal-inspired robotics project in UC's Biology Meets Engineering program. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand

Two students wearing colored lenses try to decipher colored cards on a table.

High school students participate in an exercise on color vision during UC's Biology Meets Engineering program. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand

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