{"id":25945,"date":"2024-08-27T22:21:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T22:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pueblo-community-college-celebrates-new-stem-building\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:30:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:30:45","slug":"pueblo-community-college-celebrates-new-stem-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pueblo-community-college-celebrates-new-stem-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Pueblo Community College celebrates new STEM building"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kevin
Kevin Aten, Chris LaRose and Melissa Watters cut the ribbon Tuesday morning at Pueblo Community College\u2019s new STEM building. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Pueblo Community College\u2019s Southwest Campus in Mancos celebrated its new building on Tuesday with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at 10 a.m. and an open house.<\/p>\n

They welcomed students, staff and the public to come see what was a once a storage unit and is now the campus\u2019 premier Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics building.<\/p>\n

There will be a second open house on Wednesday, Aug. 28 from 3 to 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

A few short years ago, the campus didn\u2019t have a STEM program at all. When they started up the program and had select classes, they taught in random rooms in the main building.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is much less crowded, and more inviting,\u201d said Melissa Watters, the STEM academic and career expert at the college.<\/p>\n

\"Inside
Inside Pueblo Community College\u2019s new STEM building. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The new space has an open concept, which encourages collaboration and teamwork. It\u2019s open to all students \u2013 not just STEM majors \u2013 and will be a great workspace for workshops, engineering classes and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium Robotics Challenge teams, Watters said.<\/p>\n

It also has 3D printers, microscopes, STEM tools and robotics equipment, among other things. They\u2019re additionally planning to collaborate with the automotive department to scan parts and try to 3D-print them.<\/p>\n

\u201cSTEM isn\u2019t just engineering. That\u2019s why the microscopes are out,\u201d Watters said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., the space will transform into the STEM Center Cafe. Students from any major can come, have coffee and use the space however they deem fit: for STEM tools or study time, Watters said.<\/p>\n

From 1 to 3 p.m. on those days, the space will be a Learner\u2019s Studio, which is more of a quiet study hall.<\/p>\n

\"Outside
Outside the new STEM building Monday morning, decorated for its open house celebration. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Kevin Aten, interim campus administrator, said he was at the building a few days ago for an academy where high school students and adult learners worked together; Aten said he enjoyed seeing the range of learners working together in the space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the community members and schools in the area take advantage of this awesome space. I\u2019m looking forward to teaching and learning and providing STEM workshops,\u201d said Chris LaRose, the STEM outreach coordinator.<\/p>\n

Part of what they\u2019re trying to do is target K-12 kids and spread awareness of the STEM program and get them excited about it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what LaRose\u2019s job is. He said he spends a lot of time in the field \u2013 last year, he connected with 450 kids.<\/p>\n

This fall, Watters said there\u2019s 12 students in an engineering class, and only three of them are from PCC. The rest are high school kids, showing the interest in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cSTEM is the right work moving forward,\u201d said Aten. \u201cStudents have immense interest in technology. They understand the skills we teach here are for their future.\u201d<\/p>\n

They all emphasized their excitement at the ribbon cutting, and what the new space means for the program moving forward.<\/p>\n

Renovation of the storage space was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Hispanic-Serving Institutions Division, and a STEM Edge grant assisted in expanding PCC\u2019s program itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelissa and Chris had a dream \u2026 they were camped in a closet in a small space, and \u2026 it\u2019s just neat for me to see two to three years later, see this come to fruition. You guys had this beautiful dream of turning this into something better. \u2026 Thanks to you guys,\u201d Aten said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018We turned a storage shed into a beautiful STEM center in about a couple years,\u2019 says PCC expert <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79164,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945\/revisions\/79164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25945"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}