Husky Express expands on Science Express mission

More than a decade after it first brought state-of-the-art lab experience to K-12 students, the Science Express has been revamped to expand its mission as the Husky Express. The Science Express first launched in 2010 to enhance the science curriculum of schools in the region that didn’t have the equipment and expertise to provide that training. Today it is going beyond science with convertible lab spaces for both science and technology equipment and the capability to adapt to offer experiences in any of St. Cloud State University’s many disciplines, said Dr. Kurt Helgeson. Last fall the Husky Express went to a professional development event for current teachers in Mankato and Detroit Lakes to show off the latest equipment and techniques being used by technology education teachers. It became a mobile Make It Space for a robotics event. It transformed into a mobile science lab for two weeks for elementary students at the Innovation Science and Technology Academy in Blaine run by St. Cloud State faculty and education students. And it served as a classroom for St. Cloud State faculty members offering a customized training with Central McGowan. Dr. Felicia Leammukda, Dr. Rachel Humphries and Dr. Ramya Sivaraj are turning it into a mobile teaching lab to offer a field experience for science education majors where students help to operate the lab and work with children to present lessons. “My student was able to have a kind of field experience,” Leammukda said. “They get to work with students in an out of school experience. They get to teach their own lesson that they developed. They need that experience before they go out and actually teach or do their student teaching experience.” Benedict Thoms-Warzecha is an Earth and Space Science/General Science Education major who worked with Academy students in fall to deliver a lesson he created with others for an after school program. “The students did really well,” he said. “Students asked a lot of really great questions which led us to a lot of side tangents, but the amount of learning that occurred that day was astronomical.” Equipment and modification for Husky Express were made possible thanks to the TEC Network and the St. Cloud State Make It Space. Central McGowan and TEAM Industries are supporters of the Husky Express and funded its rebranding.

Dr. Ramya Sivaraj works with students from South Junior High, District 742, in an after school learning opportunity thanks to the 21st Century Learning Center grant project from the Minnesota Department of Education administered by the United Way.