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MWCC Celebrates STEM Week with Panel and Hands-on Activities

Four people sit in front of an audience.
A panel discussion allowed students to ask about various STEM-related educational paths and careers.

Mount Wachusett Community College hosted over 80 students last week as they explored their options in various STEM and information technology related fields. These activities took place over the course of multiple days and coincided with Massachusetts’ STEM Week.

The school’s STEM Saves the Planet event was held on Wednesday, October 24. Activities included hands-on experiments as well as a panel of four MWCC professors and employees who talked about STEM majors at MWCC and career opportunities. The event brought together 60 high school students from Assabet, Gardner, Narragansett, Mascenic and Monty Tech.

People work in front of computers as one person leans over helping one individual.
Students receive instruction on how to set up a Raspberry Pi computer at the college’s Cyber Security event.

On Friday, October 26, the college’s information technology department held a Cyber Security event. During this event, over 20 students from Gardner High School learned about Raspberry Pi and the basics of melding programming with hardware. They learned how to physically set up the system and navigate the Raspbian operating system, allowing them to write code that can control blinking LEDs and play music.

The events took place during a statewide STEM Week from October 22-26, 2018. This was an effort to boost students’ interest and raise awareness of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.