Middle and high school students from Louisiana and Oklahoma began the new school year by completing the STEM Student Experience program recently held at Louisiana Tech University and sponsored by the Louisiana Alliance for Simulation-Guided Materials Applications (LA-SiGMA.) Before beginning a new school year, twenty middle and high school students completed a week-long science program at Louisiana Tech. The students gathered at Louisiana Tech from schools such as the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, Elm Grove Middle School, Holly Ridge Elementary School, Leesville High School, Sterlington Middle School, Simsboro High School, Morehouse Junior High School, Broken Arrow High School (Oklahoma), and Tulsa Community College (Oklahoma) for a week of hands-on activities about popular science issues such as energy generation, storage and conversion. Students also toured research labs at Louisiana Tech, built a hydrogen-powered car and investigated the chemistry behind the working of batteries. After each day’s activities, the students enjoyed community building events at dining centers, recreational facilities and apartments on the Louisiana Tech campus. “The program helped me to learn about new things that I had never thought I’d have the opportunity to learn,” said Lily Merritt, a student from Simsboro High School. Amy Smith, the parent of Sterlington Middle School student Jake Smith, who participated in the program, said “This program has helped my student by giving him ideas about what he would like from his future and made him anticipate and excited about the college experience.” The students who participated in the STEM Student Experience were selected and invited by their teachers who were participating in a six-week Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program. The 2014 RET program, also held at Louisiana Tech, drew teachers from Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. The STEM Student Experience and the RET programs are both sponsored by LA-SiGMA which includes Louisiana Tech, Louisiana State University, Tulane University, University of New Orleans, Southern University, Xavier University and Grambling State University. LA-SiGMA is funded by a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The RET program is also supported by Shell through the North Louisiana Regional Collaborative for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching. Written by Marissa Lee