Tulsa Youth Rowing Association and Union Alternative School partner with the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance to provide science/math instruction and rowing activities

rowing stem alternative school union

Tulsa Youth Rowing Association is pleased to formally announce a partnership with the Alternative School in Union Public Schools. With the support of the Tulsa Regional STEM alliance Flight Night grant, a gROW Tulsa RowingSTEM program with six rowing machines and equipment will be starting very soon on campus.

The RowingSTEM program involves the use of Concept2 rowing machines and an innovative iOS app that provides access to learn to row fundamentals, curriculum documentation, and collects data from the machine. 

The data collected from the machines will serve as the impetus for various mathematics, science, and other explorations during the school day. 

The Alternative School does not have a physical education program. As a result, this opportunity presents an excellent solution to provide fitness programming that integrates into the larger curriculum. The school became interested in the potential of this program about a year ago. It has taken a great deal of planning and preparation to get to this point.

Science teacher Debra Beattie applied for the Flight Night grant and will receive professional development to help manage and instruct the students in the STEM curriculum. 

“The partnership with TYRA and Neil is going to be a tremendous opportunity for our Alternative students. Not only introducing them to the sport of rowing but utilizing the STEM application that Neil has created will allow us to integrate across the curriculum in multiple disciplines and enhance what we are already doing in our block schedule,” said Union Alternative Principal Chris Drucker. “This has the potential to be a game-changer for our students and we couldn’t be more excited about the RowingSTEM program.” 

“We are excited to get this program started, as it presents an even greater opportunity to bolster the curriculum as well as provide more opportunity for students to access the sport of rowing” said TYRA outreach director Neil Bergenroth. “We are grateful to both Union and TRSA alliance for their partnership and support.”

“Huge thanks to Flight Night for empowering TRSA to work with Tulsa Youth Rowing Association and Union Public Schools to build broad, deep and innovative STEM pathways for all students to access high-impact careers,” said TRSA Executive Director Xan Black. 

Tulsa Youth Rowing plans to have three RowingSTEM after-school programs at Hale Junior High, Will Rogers High School, and Monroe Demonstration Academy in partnership with The Opportunity Project, Tulsa Debate League, and Youth at Heart.

In addition, the club recently won a grant alongside Tulsa Public Schools for the Erg Ed program which provides 20 rowing machines, training for physical educators, and instructional curriculum for physical education classes during the school day.

For more information on the organizations mentioned in this article, please use the following links:

Tulsa Youth Rowing Association: www.okrowing.org

Union Alternative School: https://www.unionps.org/index.php?pageID=426663_3

Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance: https://tulsastem.org/

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