Category: General

SC4 Experience Center enhances interactive learning opportunities, welcomes traveling fossils exhibit

PORT HURON – St. Clair County Community College’s 16,000-square-foot Experience Center continues to evolve, recently enhancing interactive learning opportunities in its Innovation Center and welcoming “Fossils of the Michigan Basin,” a traveling exhibit by paleontologist, author and storyteller Joseph “PaleoJoe” Kchodl.

The Innovation Center — located within the Experience Center — is now home to a growing number of STEAM-based interactive displays, 3-D pens and technology, a circuit center, a coding station and a virtual reality simulation that make learning fun for students of all ages.

Two images of the Experience Center, one of the Innovation Center and the other of a green screen.

“Guests to the Innovation Center now have the ability to shift energy flow through batteries and light bulbs, create video games and programs through coding and JavaScript, design three-dimensional objects with a 3-D pen and much more,” says Becky Gentner, SC4 executive director of budget and project management, who mentioned the Innovation Center is available via scheduled appointments and field trips. “We are thrilled to expand our offerings and welcome more exciting exhibits for our community.”

“Fossils of the Michigan Basin” is a Michigan-based traveling exhibit featuring fossils of creatures that lived in the Devonian Period of Michigan, long before the age of dinosaurs. It includes Brachiopods, Gastropods, Cephalopods, Prehistoric armor-plated fish and corals, and even a piece of limestone from the thumb region that was touched by a glacier in the last ice age. The exhibit is located in the Experience Center’s Dr. Bassam H. Nasr Natural Science Museum, which is home to the largest collection of fossil artifacts in the Michigan thumb region.

“Michigan at one time was the bottom of an ancient salt water sea,” says PaleoJoe. “Visitors to this exhibit can go back in time when Michigan abounded with creatures of the sea — a time when certain fish species grew to more than 30 feet long, and a time when coral reefs broke the surface of the water creating lagoons filled with life. It is a wonderful way to introduce the public to fossils that can be found right here in our state.”

Three images of the Experience Center, 3D station, exhibit, and Virtual Reality station.

Opened in the fall of 2018, the Experience Center is a hands-on STEAM center that features unique and evolving exhibits, an augmented reality sandbox, a live sturgeon exhibit and more. Recently, SC4 and the Community Foundation of St. Clair County announced a Tarbosauras skeleton cast gift from the SC4 Foundation and two Community Foundation donor advised funds. The Tarbosauras skeleton cast will join a collection that includes a woolly rhinoceros skeleton replica, and T-Rex and Mastodon skull replicas.

The Experience Center is open to the public and is a growing regional field trip destination thanks to a collaborative partnership with the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum and its Unity in Learning initiative. For more information on scheduling a visit, please send an email to experiencecenter@sc4.edu.

SC4, Port Huron High School to host MHSAA basketball state quarterfinals March 12 and 19

St. Clair County Community College, along with Port Huron High School, will host two Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) basketball state quarterfinals in its Fieldhouse March 12 and March 19.

A Division 3 boys quarterfinal between Detroit Edison Public School Academy and Flint Beecher High School is scheduled for tomorrow, March 12. A Division 2 girls quarterfinal is set for Tuesday, March 19. Both games begin at 7 p.m.
The winning boys team will advance to the semifinals at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center on March 14. The winning girls team will advance to the semifinals beginning March 21, at Calvin College’s Van Noord Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“We’re thrilled to bring MHSAA Basketball Quarterfinals to the SC4 Fieldhouse and provide an opportunity for St. Clair Community College to show off its wonderful new building,” MHSAA spokesperson Geoff Kimmerly said as site locations were announced last year. “Basketball Quarterfinals often are among the most highly-attended events of any tournament season, and SC4 provides a great venue for games of this magnitude. Teams and fans will enjoy playing at SC4 as they continue the championship climb.”

Added Dale Vos, SC4 director of athletics, “We’re excited to host these MHSAA quarterfinals games and delighted to welcome community members from near and far to the SC4 Fieldhouse.”

The public is encouraged to attend the quarterfinal games. Admission is $7 at the door.

Focus on Open Education Resources helps maximize student success, reduce college costs

It is Open Education Week, and St. Clair County Community College remains committed to its open education resources (OER) efforts, which have helped save students nearly $900,000 since 2016.

Started in 2013, Open Education Week is a global event to raise awareness and showcase the impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. OER include freely accessible, openly licensed text, media and other digital assets that can increase student learning and success while reducing the cost of higher education.

At SC4, OER advocates have led efforts that focus on providing faculty members the opportunity to utilize alternative textbooks that save students money. Faculty members in biology, business, criminal justice, earth science, English, health education, history, math, philosophy, physics courses and more have utilized the resources.

Additionally, many SC4 faculty members have received pilot awards for their OER innovation, including biology instructor Brandis Hubbard, who was recently recognized for a series of videos she developed for one of her courses.

“Embracing the creation and use of OER gives us the opportunity to encourage collaboration and creativity while also addressing textbook affordability to ensure our students have access to the resources they need to be successful,” said SC4 Dean of Library Services and Academic Technology Kendra Lake. “As the support for OER continues to grow across the state and the nation, being an integral part of the larger OER community will continue to benefit our students.”

Other OER efforts at the college include:

  • Participation in Michigan Colleges Online’s OER Commons hub, an OER discovery and curation tool that’s free for faculty members.
  • An OER team consisting of faculty, librarians and staff which aims to encourage and support open pedagogy across the college.
  • Host to more than 200 open education practitioners and advocates from across the state as part of the second annual Michigan Open Educational Resources (OER) Summit in September 2018.
  • A permanent OER textbook display available to faculty in the college’s library.
  • A custom OER Library Research Guide, featuring a curated list of OER resources by discipline, open access content search with a list of OER repositories, links to open education research and much more.

SC4’s 17th annual Free College Day to take place March 16

St. Clair County Community College will hold its 17th annual Free College Day from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 16, on its Port Huron campus.

DSC_9729This college-wide community outreach program offers a day of free, hourlong classes for children and adults covering a wide range of subjects, including science, technology, arts, business and much more. Classes will be led by SC4 faculty, staff and community members volunteering their time to share their expertise and experiences with the community.

Classes begin at 9 a.m., 10:15 a.m., 12:15 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. While each class is completely free and open to the public, pre-registration is required. Those interested in attending can find full class details and register online at sc4.edu/freecollege.

Free College Day49.jpgThere also are drop-in sessions that require no registration, including hands-on activities in the Experience Center and its Dr. Bassam H. Nasr Natural Science Museum, opportunities to climb the SC4 Tower, and chances to experience the artwork at the SC4 Fine Arts Gallery.

The SC4 cafeteria will be open during the events. To maximize class time, attendees are encouraged to bring their own lunch or preorder a lunch through the link on the Free College Day website.

For questions about Free College Day, contact Debbie Sta Cruz at 810-989-5709 or dstacruz@sc4.edu.