Cultivating STEM Excellence at an All-Girls Catholic High School

Key points:

Although Academy of Mercy Mercy is one of four all-girls Catholic high schools in Louisville, Kentucky, and we are the only one that is STEM certified. In fact, Mercy was the first all-girls school in the country to earn a STEM certification. Interest in our program has been intense; the school’s 500-plus students come from 95 elementary schools in several counties and even from neighboring Indiana.

We became STEM certified in 2016 because we wanted independent verification of the quality of our program. After examining several options for certifying agencies, we chose Cognia, a non-profit, non-governmental organization that provides accreditation, certification, and enhancement services worldwide.

The nonprofit was already acting as our accrediting agency. However, rather than seeking convenience, we were looking for a certification that aligned with our performance-based courses of study. Mercy’s curriculum requires that at least 75 percent of a course’s assessment points be devoted to performance tasks that address real-world problems.

For example, our engineering design class has an occupational therapy unit where two graduates who became therapists come to explain to the students what the job entails. The engineering students' performance task for that unit is to design a toy that helps pediatric patients perform a particular movement or learn a skill. The two occupational therapists then test those toy prototypes on real patients.

Developing STEM learning alliances

Our focus on performance tasks is reinforced by a diverse community of partners in the STEM education space. At the time of writing, Mercy Academy has gathered 32 partners.

Some examples include:

• A local branch of General Electric Appliances (GE Appliances), located across the street from our home, has engaged Mercy students in its SWiFT (Students with Futures in technology) job shadowing and hands-on experience program since that program’s inception in 2009. In addition, the company takes science professor Dr. Eric Wong’s Engineering and Design class on a tour of its assembly lines and hands-on activities in its training facility and metrology lab. GE Appliances has also developed a curriculum for that class and helped us develop our new course pathway recommendations for STEM careers. The company has launched a new second-semester co-op course for Mercy seniors. Those students will gain work experience working the second shift at GE Appliance Park on Mondays and Fridays.

• Mammoth Cave National Park, located 90 minutes from Louisville, allows our Underwater Research Team to operate submersible drones on its premises. Additionally, CAST (Center for Applied Special technology), a nonprofit research and development organization, plans to film our team’s work in the park’s famous caves as part of CAST’s national drone program.

• NASA’s Growing Beyond Earth research program works with physics and engineering professor Laura Swessel’s Mercy Environmental Ambassadors student club. The students compare plant growth in their classrooms to plant growth on the International Space Station and send the data to NASA.

• Texas A&M University’s air quality research program also selected Mercy’s Environmental Ambassadors student club as partners. The students were given air quality measurement tools and reported their findings to the university researcher. She was so impressed that she gave them a more sophisticated, real-time monitor with Wi-Fi connectivity.

Establishing cross-curricular connections

An unexpected benefit of collecting data for certification review is that it has increased our ability to spot opportunities for interdisciplinary teaching. For example, Victoria Hawkins, assistant STEM coordinator and science teacher at Mercy, noted that algebra is frequently used in chemistry class. She now employs the practice of explicitly connecting the two subjects by saying things like, “Remember when you learned how to make systems of equations? That’s how we calculate percent abundance of an isotope.”

Our pre-calculus class does a lot of cross-work with our chemistry classes, especially at the AP Chemistry level. In fact, students recently told Hawkins about “doing science in math class,” referring to an assignment on nuclear decay and radioactivity they had completed for pre-calculus. Similarly, pre-calculus students do a forensics activity in which they use Newton’s law to figure out how long a body has been cooling.

For lessons that require intensive use of math, Hawkins asks a math intervention specialist from our resource center to be present in her class. The specialist's presence mentally prepares students to do math. Additionally, the specialist helps any student who is struggling with dimensional analysis, geometry, or any other math that the lesson requires.

Honing STEM acumen

Mercy’s test scores are consistently above state and national averages. Additionally, since 2018, our science department has administered a common assessment that measures student growth in a single school year as well as throughout their time at Mercy. Assessment data is organized by graduating class cohorts with the intent of tracking essential skills from the beginning of a cohort’s freshman year through the end of their senior year. Student growth is measured in four areas that align with the ACT College Readiness Standards for Science:

• Evaluating scientific questions
• Hypothesis formulation
• Analyzing evidence
• Justification of conclusions

We are pleased to report that our students are showing definite growth in those areas throughout their time at Mercy. For example, the class of 2022 had an average overall base score of 1.67 out of 4 (measured in the fall semester of their freshman year). By the spring of their senior year, they had an average score of 3.05 out of 4, a 138 percent increase that demonstrates their growth in proficiency while enrolled in our science courses.

The class of 2023 also demonstrated impressive growth. Their measured science skills began with an average baseline score of 1.92 out of 4. By graduation, those students had achieved an average score of 3.09 out of 4, an increase of 117 percent over the course of four years.

Implementing initiatives like STEM education and performance-based learning is like planting seeds in the ground. You can have the best seed, but if the land (or culture) is not cultivated, there will be no growth. This work is about a commitment to beliefs and values, rather than fulfilling a mandate. And our students’ commitment to our STEM program inspires us as much as we want to inspire them.