A national program sponsored by Pepco and the Exelon Foundation is designed to give teenagers a peek into what it would be like to work in a science, technology, engineering and math career.
This week, Exelon Academy activities took place at the University of Maryland in College Park. Previous programs have also been held in Baltimore and Chicago. A fourth will be held next month in Philadelphia.
The College Park program drew over 100 incoming high school juniors and seniors from across the District, Maryland and Virginia.
“Some of these kids come from underserved communities, which means they don’t even have access to STEM education truly within their school,” said Maya Huggins-Garcia, who has been directing the national program for five years.
She said academy exposes students to technical careers, allows them to network with professionals in the field, and gives them a chance to see themselves in a college setting and develop skills they will need when they enter the workforce.
The program also helps students understand the opportunities available to them through STEM with a series of exercises and projects.
“They actively tap into their creative side, their curiosity, and they’ve come up with great concepts to help us with the mitigation of climate change on our electrical infrastructure,” Huggins-Garcia said.
“I think it’s been really cool,” Sophia Cannaday, an incoming junior at D.C.’s McKinley Technology High School, said. “It’s definitely different from anything I’ve ever done before, and I think it’s really nice that we get to network with so many different individuals who do all these really great, important things.”
The 16-year-old Cannaday and her team were working on developing a brownfield project, designing an electrical grid, establishing water sources and other civil engineering projects. They were also building out a community by planning the placement of a school, daycare and grocery store.
“This week has been amazing,” 16-year-old Jonah Mischalove, a D.C. resident who attends Bethesda Chevy-Chase High School, said. “We’ve worked on team building, and right now we’re actually working on resuscitating a contaminated field.”
Mischalove also said the program helped attendees build a LinkedIn page and taught them about an elevator pitch.
“Those are just truly incredible skills that everyone should really have,” he said.
“At the end of this program, we will have impacted 400 students overall,” Huggins-Garcia said. “They will join 1,700 students that have come before them.”
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