Lauren Cohen, a junior education major, stands up in front of the class to discuss the answers to a poll taken during her presentation. Courtesy of Emily Bowers
By Dinorah Prevost
Writing on your desk’s table top in class is usually an unproductive scribble. A little stick figure, a phrase or initials, or maybe an inside joke.
It’s nowhere to take notes or do group work — unless your table top is a whiteboard, like the 10 or so desks in the College of Education’s new STEM INQ (inquiry) lab.
Hasena Kurtic, an education major, said that of all the lab’s features, the whiteboard table tops are her favorite.
The lab, which opened last month, allows students and faculty to bring more science, technology, engineering and math into their lessons.
Located on the second floor of Coquina Hall, it takes up the space of two regular-sized classrooms. Three rotating glass doors in the middle of the room can separate the space if needed.
The lab’s equipment include 3D printers, virtual reality goggles, VEX IQ robots and MERGE Cubes and VR toys that can be used with a smartphone, among other things.
The idea for the lab stretches back to the college’s previous interim dean Olivia Hodges. Current dean Allyson Watson, who took over last July, had a similar vision and moved forward with actualizing the lab.
Sandra Vernon-Jackson, a STEM instructor who oversees the lab, said the new classroom expands the resources available to education students.
“In order for us to equip our students, not necessarily students here at USFSP, but the students in schools in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco, we, as the educators, had to start educating our teachers that way,” Vernon-Jackson said.
“You can always educate a group of people and (not) have the best tools. But in order to help them to be more effective, you have to give them the tools. So the space was created in order for us to not only provide the space, but also provide the equipment.”
College of Education professors Karina Hensberry and David Rosengrant are the first faculty to hold classes in the lab.
Kurtic, a student in Rosengrant’s Science for All Students class, said the lab is more inviting than other classrooms in Coquina.
“It’s more roomy, more innovative,” she said. “Since our night classes are so long, before I thought, ‘Oh my god, another hour, another hour’ left and right. But now it’s brighter, so it kind of makes the time go fast. It’s more like I want to come to class now.”
Wendy Brown, another education major in Rosengrant’s class, echoed Kurtic on the lab’s spaciousness.
“The old space didn’t allow for movement, while this one does,” Brown said.
Vernon-Jackson said that the lab is not only for the College of Education to use.
“We’re pulling in community usage of it,” she said. “Right now, I’m in working with a organization that will be trying to utilize the lab for Legos competition. We’re working with FIRST LEGO League. So it’s not only something that is reserved only for the College of Education. We’re also opening it up to other colleges.”
