STEM in Action at Fishburne Military School

Fishburne Military School Adopts Hour of Code to Encourage STEM
Program Sparks Interest and Learning Among Corps of Cadets 

Waynesboro, VA – Fishburne Military School may be the oldest accredited secondary school in Virginia but the Faculty and Cadets are far from living in the past. The school’s ongoing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiative is teaching young men an appreciation for 21st-century skills that will, undoubtedly, be critical to their future success. As a growing part of that initiative, members of the FMS Science and Technology faculty adapted the world-wide Hour of Code event and issued a challenge to the entire Corps of Cadets.

FMS Technology Chair, CPT Roxanne Rodes, along with instructors CPT Tom Galloway and SGT Kenneth Glass reserved computers and work-space in the Hobbby-Hudgins Hall technology center for the week, organized a number of STEM-related activities and labs, and then challenged every Cadet to spend at least one hour during the week exploring Coding-related topics and learning more about how the world of tomorrow will tick.

“The Hour of Code this year was an overwhelming success with 100% participation among cadets,” noted Rodes. “We actually had too many [completion certificates] to place on the Technology classrooms’ walls! Cadets enjoyed the activity, and completed multiple certificates.”

In addition to the Hour of Code tutorials, Cadets were encouraged to participate in ongoing FMS STEM projects such as designing and producing rocket and robot parts using a 3-D printer, programming robots to navigate an obstacle course, building an FMS-based video game and more.

For a number of Cadets, this hands-on introduction to Coding sparked a true interest in the field. “[Some Cadets] wanted to work beyond the scope of Hour of Code and signed up for EdX, and enrolled in a free online Harvard University Introduction to Computer Science course after completing the Hour of Code,” Rodes explained.

The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in over 180 countries. One-hour tutorials are available in over 45 languages and are designed to introduce students to the world of writing code and developing fundamental skills for modern computer literacy.

Fishburne Military School is the oldest and smallest of all military schools for boys in Virginia. Its college-prep curriculum is built upon the structure of an Army JROTC program.
FMS is designated as a JROTC Honor Unit with Distinction and may nominate qualified candidates to the United States Service Academies.
Fishburne hosts one of only four Summer JROTC programs in the nation, accredited by US Army Cadet Command.