This year, high school teachers Alexandra Nohowec and Dennis Pope launched the school’s first STEM Academy for freshmen. Students in the program spend a half-year focusing on research skills with Nohowec, and the other half of the year engaged in engineering technology with Pope. This fall, the two educators brought their students together for a joint STEM project, researching ways to sample plankton and engineering their own plankton nets. Together, the students all ventured on a field trip to test their designs.