Gloucester Alumni

By Douglas A. Moser
Staff writer

The nascent extracurricular robotics program at Gloucester High School received a jolt last night to keep it going for another year, a grant from the Gloucester Education Foundation.

The $66,620 grant will create a simple machines and robotics learning opportunity for fifth-graders to complement what is offered in the middle and high schools.

Another grant from the foundation, $23,310 that was accepted Oct. 24, will pay for foreign language teaching at the middle school and string music instruction for the elementary schools.

"On a larger scale we've funded a number of programs, most of all the programs we funded last year we're funding again," said Edward Shoucair, founder and president of the foundation.

Last year, a grant from the foundation and NASA created the robotics program, in which about 50 students built robots with high school science teachers John Chiffer and Kurt Lichtenwald. The NASA grant enabled the students to enter a competition where they received instruction in January on what kind of activity their robot needed to do, then were given six weeks to build it.

Gloucester placed 14th out of 50 schools in the regional competition.

This year, Lichtenwald said the students, still numbering 50, built remote-controlled robots that climb steps. The rest of the school year will be spent writing and installing programs to allow the robots act to autonomously, and to install sensors and a camera.

"It gives us another technical aspect to the physics program, where kids are compiling data and writing programs," Lichtenwald said.

The students plan to enter the NASA-sponsored competition again this year, he said.

Superintendent Christopher Farmer has said he hopes to make robotics a part of the science curriculum, as opposed to just an extracurricular activity.

The $66,620 grant will also expand earth sciences teaching for third- through fifth-graders, who are studying tidal and vernal pools, the geology of Cape Ann, and marine science. The pupils will take field trips to Dogtown, vernal pools around Cape Ann and Mount Avalon in New Hampshire.

"We're trying to bring third- through fifth-grade science in better alignment with the state curriculum," said Joseph Rosa, vice president of the foundation.

The money helped buy textbooks, bridge-building software, maps, compasses, gyroscopes and a number of different microscopes for students and teachers.

The $23,310 grant will continue and expand foreign language courses for the middle school, and add an advanced course for students who have already taken a language. The program offers German, Italian and Spanish. It will also support a strings program for fourth- and fifth-grade students.

In two years of existence, Shoucair said the Gloucester Education Foundation has raised between $250,000 and $300,000 - $150,000 to $200,000 this year - through pledge drives with families and local businesses and through fundraisers.

"Because fundraising efforts in the community have grown this year considerably, and because of the response from the community, it has allowed us to do significantly more," Shoucair said.

A fundraiser at Bass Rocks Golf Course three weeks ago showcased the stair-climbing robots, something Rosa said was a big success.

Shoucair and a number of concerned parents formed the Gloucester Education Foundation during the summer of 2005 to help bolster the struggling school budget and support enriched curriculum.