Organizations across Oklahoma provide opportunities for K-12 students to participate in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities. OneNet encourages our customers to involve their students in these initiatives to continue promoting STEM education in our state. This page is dedicated to helping connect our customers to local resources that provide engaging opportunities for today’s students and tomorrow’s professionals. Learn more about these resources and how your organization can involve its students.
University of Oklahoma K-20 Center
The University of Oklahoma’s K20 Center hosts a tech lab, where teachers can experiment with new classroom technologies and learn ways to incorporate technology into teaching strategies. They also connect teachers with grant resources to fund classroom technology projects.
OneNet has had the opportunity to partner with the K20 Center to distribute their digital game-based learning tools. The center’s learning games teach students important STEM concepts from inferential logics and hypothesis testing to calculus concepts. The learning games are available to all Oklahoma schools at no-cost through the partnership with OneNet. For more information and registration, visit https://k20center.ou.edu/games/.
Raspberry Shake
Raspberry Shake is committed improving knowledge about how the Earth moves. The Raspberry Shake Network is a global community of citizen scientists, geophysical institutes and private enterprises sharing data from Earth to contribute to the future of seismology.
Oklahoma is one of the most seismically active regions in the nation and Raspberry Shake has made their mark with the help of the Oklahoma Geological Survey by distributing vertical motion earthquake monitors to schools and libraries across Oklahoma. The monitoring device can fit in the palm of your hand and is powerful enough to detect an earthquake in Perry, Oklahoma from Lawton.
Educators can visit https://raspberryshake.org/ and explore the data collected across the state to help students gain a better understanding of plate tectonics, earthquakes, rocks, minerals and paleontology in our state and around the globe. Lawton Public Library also features a permanent display of the seismic activity detected using Raspberry Shake’s monitoring device. For more information please contact Stephanie Shrock, Library Technology Specialist, sshrock@lawtonok.gov or call 580-581-3450 option 4.
Oral Roberts University Global Learning Center
Oral Roberts University has emerged as a leader in implementing next-generation technology to engage students around the globe. ORU deployed a Global Learning Center that harnesses virtual and segmented reality technologies to offer students an unmatched learning experience, available to students around the world through a connection as simple as a smartphone.
The Global Learning Center hopes to make their resources virtually available across the state by using a cloud-based videoconferencing technology. For more information visit http://www.oru.edu/glc/ or contact the center at InfoGLC@oru.edu.
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge offers a virtual classroom for educators, allowing students to learn more about wildlife and environmental sciences.
A variety of workshops also give students from public and home schools, scout troops and other educational institutions the opportunity to learn about the natural world and to creatively express their experiences through a variety of media.
Contact the refuge Visitor Center for reservations or for more detailed information at 580-429-2197.
The UCO Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching and Research Center
In the fall of 2018, the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) unveiled a new 57,000-square-foot technology center aimed at bringing together students of all STEM backgrounds under one roof. The center hopes to bring problem solvers together in a quality learning space that houses state-of-the-art research labs, several classrooms, and faculty office space and inspires collaboration.
OneNet’s services help to power UCO’s research facility, making world-class research opportunities available to Oklahoma students. For more information on the facility and how students can get involved, visit http://sites.uco.edu/cms/
Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum Family STEM Night
The Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum hosts a series of family STEM nights for students and their parents to engage in hands-on learning activities as a family. The STEM nights take place year round and offer activities ranging from forensic analysis techniques to structure engineering games.
STEM nights are $10 per family and are offered to students 5th grade and above. For more information and registration, visit https://oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/family-stem-night-4/.
Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance
The Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance (TRSA) is an organization focused on building broad, deep and innovative pathways for all students to pursue their STEM interests. The organization is Tulsa-based and hosts a series of events ranging from engineering challenges modeled after The Hunger Games to events where students build remote-controlled underwater robots.
The Tulsa-based organization also offers a variety of summer camps covering a variety of STEM topics and concepts. Their website also features various online STEM games and provides scholarship links. For more information visit https://tulsastem.org/.
Rose State College Invention Convention
Rose State College hosts an annual Oklahoma Students Inventors Exposition at their Midwest City campus each spring. One hundred and eighty of Oklahoma’s youngest inventors will showcase their ideas and compete for awards. The purpose of the event is to promote STEM education by giving students the opportunity to show off their critical thinking and problem-solving skills as they find creative solutions to everyday problems.
The exposition is typically held each February at the Hudiburg Performing Arts Center on the Rose State campus. Setup and judging is followed by an awards ceremony. For more information, visit https://www.rose.edu/content/news-events/news/2019/01-january/young-inventors-to-showcase-at-rose-state-college-for-invention-convention/.
Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma
The Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma are challenging young girls to push their boundaries, test their limits and explore their interests in STEM. From coding to robotics, the organization offers a variety of STEM activities for girls of all ages in Oklahoma. Girls can also earn badges and patches to recognize their STEM accomplishments.
On a national level, Girl Scouts offers various scholarships and STEM grants for those wanting to pursue a career in a STEM related field. For more information about the Girls Scouts and their involvement in STEM, visit http://www.gswestok.org/stem.
