The Central Pennsylvania Institute of Technology recently unveiled the state’s third IDEA Hub, a partnership between local school districts, institutions and businesses designed to step up students’ learning experiences and push them to think in more innovative ways.
The Pennsylvania Statewide Afterschool/Youth Development Network awarded a grant that enabled CPI to create the youth hub.
IDEA stands for innovation, design, entrepreneurship and action. This new youth hub includes students from Bald Eagle, Bellefonte, Penns Valley and CPI school districts.
These youth hubs provide the infrastructure to support and increase awareness of, as well as offer leadership for, programs that are focused on entrepreneurship and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Students will have a chance to use resources and work with experts to develop ideas they have worked on in class or independently.
They will have opportunities to network and strengthen their skills, according to Brit Milazzo, public relations director at Bellefonte School District.
A sizable crowd showed up for the launch of the youth hub, including commissioners, parents, Penn State representatives, local business leaders and other partners such as Siemens Industry Inc., Corbett Inc. and Engine of Central Pennsylvania.
Penn State is involved via the Center for Science and the Schools, Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship.
The grant is for one year and will be supplemented by donations. The youth hub model has the opportunity to leverage funding at the local, regional and statewide levels.
The afterschool and summer programs will help many kids to realize their dreams of building, creating and/or starting their own businesses and more, organizers say. CPI is located at 540 N. Harrison Road.
One student, Hailey Bucha, was invited to the event to set up a display showing a business she started three years ago when she purchased a few rabbits.
She was interested in their fur and had visions of making items from it. The rabbits are Frangola rabbits and have luxurious coats. They need to be shorn a couple of times a year.
Bucha has 30 rabbits now and they are kept in climate-controlled pens. She has two goats and has learned, along with her mother to spin the wool from them to yarn.
Many hats and other items made from both the rabbit fur and the goat’s hair proved the success of her venture.
Bucha, a sophomore student from Bald Eagle said, “I enjoy taking care of the animals and it’s been interesting to learn to spin and knit using their fur.”
IDEA Hub goals, according to Sherri Cornell, assistant superintendent at Penns Valley Area School District, include:
– Fostering creativity, risk-taking and resilience;
– Providing onsite, mobile and satellite experiences; and
– Creation of a network of human and material resources.
Where do they go from here with this program?
As Cornell pointed out at the reception, “These kids are here because they love it.”
