A STEM partnership through Rutgers University’s maker certification program
By Danielle Puglisi
Picture this: On the day before the long-awaited freedom of 2022 summer vacation, seventh grade students at Branchburg Central Middle School (BCMS) were not watching movies or signing yearbooks. They enthusiastically participated in a spotted lanternfly eradication engineering-design challenge that demonstrated a notable example of citizen science and place-based education.
These students got an important opportunity to investigate the real-world problem of the devastating invasive lanternfly. In order to design solutions to the lanternfly problem damaging the Garden State, the students learned about the bug’s life cycle and how as few as 30 of them can kill a grapevine. These students designed, built, redesigned and tested their lanternfly traps—all while their…
