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AVHS STEM Updates

News and Notes about STEM happenings at AVHS

AVHS STEMUpdatesNews and Notes about STEM happenings at AVHS
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H2U: GLOBAL HEALTH & HEALTH EQUITY RESEARCH Program

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Iron Maidens: Win Inspire Award, Advance to State!

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AVHS HOSA Team

H2U: GLOBAL HEALTH AND HEALTH EQUITY RESEARCH PROGRAM

H2U is a pilot program exclusively for AVHS juniors. This program introduces high school students to the world of research through global health and health equity projects led by University of Minnesota professors. Professors serve as mentors to help guide students and provide hands-on experiences with real-world research. The program is going so well plans are being made to continue the program into next year.


All participants will take part in 5 online lectures, professional skill development by contributing to a research team, and research skill development tailored to a student’s goals and interests. The program will require students to dedicate approximately 4-5 hours per week during the summer program, and 2-3 hours per week during the academic year. The photo below is a fall social where mentors and students had a chance to meet. H2U website: https://med.umn.edu/dom/research/programs-centers/h2u

H2U Student Reflection about program: https://youtu.be/Bpy-GyrH4_Y

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H2U Students with Mentors

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UMN - H2U Program

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H2U Fall Social

Uponor Partnership Support

Uponor continues to be a fantastic partner supporting our STEM Pathway schools in many ways. Uponor once again is a financial sponsor for our two FIRST robotics teams. They support the Iron Maidens FTC and our Knights of the Valley FRC robotics teams. This year, Uponor is on board as a partner at Valley Middle School of STEM. Uponor is providing both financial and technical partnership for VMSS staff as they implement the STEM Innovator model of learning. Finally, Uponor is working with our Work Experience program to provide a mentoring program using the BestPrep program this spring. See the STEM learning and outreach Uponor is supporting by our robotics teams below.

Iron Maidens FIRST Tech Challenges Robotics Team

Our Iron Maidens FTC 9205 robotics team has done it again! They won the Inspire Award at a tournament held at Burnsville High. This is the 32nd award earned by our Iron Maidens in their team's history and the 3rd time they have earned this highest award given to a team who is the best overall a tournament. Well done ladies! Learn more about the Iron Maidens here: https://ironmaidensftc.wixsite.com/ironmaidens. Thank you to Leidos and Uponor for sponsoring our Iron Maidens!
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Iron Maidens Competing

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Inspire Award

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The Team

Knights of the Valley FIRST Robotics Competition Team - #2667

Our Knights of the Valley received the new game challenge in early January and are very busy designing, building and programming their robot for two spring regional competitions taking place in March and April. The team is generously sponsored by Uponor and Nordson Medical. Both organizations also offer technical support as needed. This past summer, the Knights built and competed in a solar boat challenge. The team won a design award for their boat.
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Solar Boat Challenge

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Beginning of 2022 Robot

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Team 2667

Leidos Partnership Support

We would like to express our gratitude to Leidos for their continued support of various STEM programs here at AVHS. Leidos sponsors our Iron Maidens robotics teams. Pre-pandemic, Leidos hosted many career exploration events at their Eagan site. We are very excited to have four AVHS seniors currently interviewing for a software engineering summer internship at Leidos upon their graduation. These are students who have or are currently taking our AP Computer Science course. This is the 8th year Leidos has offered this amazing opportunity. Our first summer intern is now a full-time software engineer at Leidos! Thank you for offering such an incredible opportunity for our students. Internship information: https://careers.leidos.com/jobs/8039645-stem-software-engineering-intern

SFM Partnership Support

Thank you to SFM for once again providing our school with a STEM grant. These funds have been used by our math department to purchase many graphing calculators for loan to students who cannot afford them. Having access to these calculators has greatly increased the level of success in our our math classes. We look forward to once again being able to visit SFM as they hosted some of the best career exploration field trip experiences we have offered in the past.
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Thank you notes - Precalculus classes

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Students with calculators

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Thank you notes - Algebra 2

ISG Partnership Support

We could not effectively run our fabrication lab courses at AVHS without the continued financial support from ISG to help us purchase needed supplies for these extremely dynamic courses. This funding from ISG ensure that we do not have to pursue students for lab fee donations. We would also like to express our gratitude to ISG for launching into a much stronger partnership with Valley Middle School of STEM. ISG is providing financial support for VMSS to help them purchase additional 3D printers. ISG staff are also partnering with VMSS teachers to develop an engineering project for students.


AVHS staff are working with key ISG professionals to develop a pilot program designed to offer pathways into multiple career fields in their industry. We are working toward piloting this program by offering a group of AVHS students paid professional summer internships. More about this program is below:


District 196 – ISG Career Builder Program

Inspire, Support career exploration, and Graduate with a career plan.


Goal: Provide students with an equitable opportunity to explore the outer limit of their potential by designing their future through inspiring career exploration, support for professional skill development, and employment while in high school to graduate with a career plan in place.

Develop a program to introduce students to careers in Business + Marketing Writer, Civil Engineering Designer, Land Survey Specialist, Telecommunications Designer, and Visualization Specialists.

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AVHS Fab Lab

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AVHS Drones Everywhere!

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VMSS Fab Lab

Genesys Works


Genesys Works creates career pathways and opportunities for youth from underserved communities while simultaneously helping employers fill critical talent gaps within their companies.sys Works creates career pathways and opportunities for youth from underserved communities while simultaneously helping employers fill critical talent gaps within their companies. AVHS has 8 seniors in the program now. We are actively recruiting juniors for the Class of 2022. These students can earn up to $16,000.00 over the course of their internship!


Learn more about the Genesys Works model: https://genesysworks.org/twin-cities/about-us/

STEM Career Exploration Activities & Programs

Many other STEM activities and programs are in progress again this year after the disruption of the pandemic is waining.


  • A motivated group of students re-launched a HOSA chapter at AVHS. HOSA is a student-led organization designed to support career exploration in healthcare. Our chapter members were able to attend a very engaging fall event.
  • We welcomed software engineer Orion Supergan to AVHS for a career exploration event earlier this year.
  • We once again were able to take a group of students to the University of St. Thomas for a wonderful event designed to provide them with an exploration of careers in accounting.
  • Teacher Jae Cody supported by female software engineers from C.H. Robinson have resumed work with a group of AVHS girls to launch our Girls Who Code club. This club meets after school to explore computer programming.
  • Our Iron Maidens have been very busy recently offering STEM outreach activities to multiple elementary schools via Zoom these past few weeks.
  • The AVHS Science Olympiad team is once again competing. Thank you to BTM Global for their support of our Science Olympiad team!
  • The institute of Engineering & Medicine at the University of Minnesota once again offered a live career exploration event called the Inspire conference. We were able to take a group of AVHS students to experience this excellent event this past fall.
  • AVHS has another State championship team. Our Valorant eSports team won the Minnesota State title in early January. eSports is a relatively new program that is experiencing explosive growth in high schools and colleges across the country. Colleges are now building eSports arenas and offering scholarships to eSports athletes. Students can learn many technical skills beyond the actual gaming involved in eSports.
  • Finally, AVHS is hosting a career fair later in February called "Let's Connect". We are heavily recruiting alumni from area businesses with a special emphasis on inviting a diverse group of professionals who come from backgrounds similar to our student population.
  • Stay tuned to AVHS. There is more to come!
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HOSA Fall Event

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Software Engineer Exploration

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UST Accounting Exploration

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Girls Who Code

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Iron Maiden Outreach for Elementary Schools

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Science Olympiad

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IEM Inspire Conference

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AVHS eSports State Champions

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Upcoming Career Fair

Follow STEM at AVHS

https://www.facebook.com/avhsstem


https://twitter.com/AVHS_STEM


E3 STEM websites: https://avhs.district196.org/academics/e3-stem

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