Hands-on Science for the North County.
Families in Northern SLO County have been looking for opportunities to enrich STEM education for their children. Central Coast STEM Academy aims to give memorable experiences and trigger a love of science in the next generation.
Explore STEM Opportunities… more to come
Come join us for an epic adventure that blends DnD with VEX Robotics. You and your friends have been transported to a galactic gameshow arena where you must work together to battle the denizens of the dungeon. You will find loot and use the provided materials to engineer solutions to challenges in the game. The lines between reality and fantasy get blurred as the intrepid survivors switch between rolling 20-sided dice and learning about the engineering design process. Can you build a device to allow your party to deactivate the minefield? How will you work together to take down the arena boss and travel back home? VEX Robotics is a leader in robotics education. The Dungeon Master is a 20-year veteran science teacher who wants to increase STEM education opportunities in Paso Robles.
VEX Robotics is a global leader in robotics education. Members of these teams will work together to form a strategy, design a robot to meet their goals, and then build that robot to be used in local area competitions. The goal would be to earn a spot to the Southern California State Regional Championships in March 2027. Each team will be comprised of 3-4 elementary-aged students (grade 6 and below). Weekly meetings will see students learning all the skills needed to compete at the highest levels. No prior experience needed, just maturity and determination to work through setbacks and learning through the engineering process. Fees paid go towards purchasing competition robotics kits, entry to local competitions, and registration of the team on RobotEvents.com.
Learn how scientists measure objects in the night sky. This course will train students to use robotic telescopes to collect images of understudied double stars. Using software, students will calculate the separation and position angle between the stars. The research students conduct will become useful to astronomers who will calculate the orbits of the double stars, determining if they are true binary systems. Binary stars are useful in cosmology as they allow us to measure the mass of stars using Kepler’s laws of motion. A final product of this course will be the submission of a research paper to be published in the Journal of Double Star Observations. No prior science experience required, maturity and good writing skills will be needed to complete the research paper. Upon completion of this course, students will be published researchers.
Get to
know us
Central Coast STEM Academy was founded by Jon-Paul Ewing, a locally raised science teacher dedicated to giving students meaningful, hands-on experiences in science and engineering.
Jon-Paul is a graduate of Cal Poly (Biological Sciences and Ecology & Systematic Biology). He is a proud Bearcat alumnus and loves teaching in his hometown. Beyond the classroom, JP is involved in the local community. He volunteers as the Cubmaster for the local Cub Scout Pack (92), helping younger students develop curiosity, confidence, and practical skills through outdoor learning and hands-on activities.
Jon-Paul spent 20 years as a teacher at Paso Robles High School, where he was the science department chair for nearly a decade and was a co-founder of the Field Studies Collaborative (FSC), a program designed to give high school students authentic field research experiences alongside working scientists. Through this program, he developed two original courses: The Marine Intertidal Monitoring Project, where students conduct ecological field surveys along the Central Coast, and the Astrometry Field Research Seminar, where students use astronomical observation techniques to study and measure double stars. JP continues to support FSC trips to Santa Cruz Island doing botanical research.
Two years ago, JP voluntarily transferred to Georgia Brown Dual Immersion to help build out their science program as they expanded to a K-8 school. He came alongside the Math Olympiad team, seeing students light up when exposed to challenging math problems. This year he voluntarily started an afterschool robotics program. The teams were met with great success, dominating the local competitions in Santa Maria and earning a spots to the Southern California Regional Championships.
Through the Central Coast STEM Academy, Jon-Paul hopes to extend these same kinds of engaging learning opportunities to younger students, encouraging a lifelong interest in science, technology, engineering, and math.
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