Apopka's Dream Lake Elementary Jedi Scientists win local STEM competition

Congratulations to Apopka's Dream Lake Elementary for its STEM Club's recent accomplishments in a local contest - and may the force be with you at the nationals.

Dream Lake's "Jedi Scientists" Team B Mousetrap car team (Braudy German, Claudivel German, Colt Biaggi) will represent Central Florida in the Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering competition — at the national level.

Juana Machado, from Dommerich Elementary School, will also compete at the national level in the Essay/Vision Board (grades 3-5) category.
 
Back in February, the Dream Lake Elementary Jedi Scientists STEM Club participated in the 2022-2023 SECME Regional competition at the University of Central Florida. The team of 10, third through fifth grade students, competed against 350 students from more than 30 schools/programs in the Central Florida Area.
 
The DLE Jedi Scientists earned:
     •  First place Egg Drop Competition
     •  First place Balsa Wood Bridge Competition
     •  First and Second place Mousetrap Car Competition
     •  Best Mousetrap Car Technical Report
     •  OVERALL WINNERS - Elementary School Division UCF SECME Regional Competition
 
This win showcases the team's hard work and dedication that led them to success.

According to its website, SECME was established in 1975 as the Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering by the Engineering Deans at six Southeastern universities: University of Alabama, University of Florida, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of South Carolina, University of Tennessee and Tuskegee Institute now Tuskegee University. In 1997, the name was changed to SECME Inc. to better represent the territories it serves today, which extend to schools, universities, science- and technology-based business and industry, and public and private agencies in 17 states (from New York to Arizona), the District of Columbia, and Grand Bahama.

Since the vision of its founding deans, many additional universities have partnered with SECME to extend its mission.

In creating SECME, the founding Deans acted to address two urgent--and enduring--national challenges: 1) declining engineering enrollments on campuses across the U.S., and 2) growing evidence of shortfalls in STEM talent to sustain an economy--and global leadership position--increasingly dependent on technology and innovation as primary engines of growth. Their solution: to tap new talent in two groups then grossly under-represented (at less than 1 percent each) in the engineering profession--namely, minorities and women.

Thus SECME began as a collaborative effort of school districts, engineering universities, business and industry, and government. The noble dream and determined pursuit of the founders was excellence and equity as well as needed change in K-12 education. The school-university partnership was the defining element in the original SECME “framework.” That model is, very intentionally, teacher-centered. By impacting teachers, all students benefit.

SECME is chartered in the State of Georgia as a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) corporation. From the beginning, its National Office and administrative home has been in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in midtown Atlanta.