Chemours and EastSide Charter School break ground on a new STEM hub at the Wilmington school.
The Chemours STEM Hub at EastSide Charter School will feature science, technology, engineering, and math education in a new 24,000 square foot building.
The $25 million facility will house the school’s APEX Middle School Honors and STEM programs, and include a maker’s space, 3D printing, and other STEM-related activities.
It will also be a community center after school, on weekends, and in the summer offer mentoring, robotics, coding, chemistry, biology, renewable energy, and Science Olympiad competitions.
Wilmington Library will staff on weekends to keep it open.
EastSide Charter School CEO Aaron Bass sees the hub opening up opportunities for a diverse group of students to pursue STEM careers.
"Young people can engage in maker spaces, and they can work with leaders like our NASA scientist (Marc DiNardo) who spoke today. People that are making career changes will get a chance to actually do internships and training with Mark Newman's team from Chemours, with Denny (Nealon) from Barclays with leaders in their STEM fields that are going to not only invest in training but also invest in making sure there's job opportunities," said Bass.
The project is receiving $3 million in federal dollars, $4 million from the state, $1 million from Barclays, and $4 million from Chemours. To date it has raised The 21 million of the $25 million price tag.
Bass says this new hub will open STEM to everyone.
"We want to make sure that people in Delaware that live in Riverside and Southbridge and all different parts of Wilmington and New Castle County and all throughout this area have access to STEM,” said Bass. “And so that means we can make sure that we have some incredible people that are able to do it of all different shades, hues and backgrounds."
It’s scheduled to be completed and open for the 2024-2025 school year.
