We hope that you take a few minutes
to read this to get a basic idea of what is in store
for the future of Applied Technology and Engineering
for the future of our schools. Focus On NASA is not
technically a school sponsored program series, but
is something done in cooperation with school and community
partners. We are program and curriculum designers
as well as a group of highly motivated and dedicated
mentors. Our best-known program, the US FIRST robotics
program Team Challenger is one shared by several
high-schools. Some of our programs are for a single
school, but others do well servicing an entire district.
The purpose of this document is two-fold.
The first part is a little self-examination of a problem
in education for which we educators all need to admit.
The second part is a plea for educators, administrators
and people in political positions to begin the process
of correcting this problem.
The problem all of us in education
know all to well.
Over the last two-decades education
turned a gradual trend toward specific education outcomes.
The outcome (goals) were noble and justifiable outcomes
for an education system to reach for by anyone’s reasonable
standards. However, over time the competing interests
over these outcomes pushed policy so that both policy
and the desire for this short list of outcomes has
become parochial. Today we find ourselves blindly
in pursuit of these goals regardless of the cost to
education and worse the cost to our youth.
Those goals are teaching specifically
to impact to achievement tests and the pursuit of
college prep goals. In today’s educational environment
we have almost no choice but to follow these present
trends. Educators and administrators alike would not
retain their jobs if we ignored these two goals. The
irony here is that anyone should be condemning these
goals at all. There is nothing wrong with improving
your school or your districts standardized test scores.
Nor is there anything wrong with raising the number
of youth from our schools who attend college. However,
in reaching for these goals, there are areas of study
that have been negatively impacted by the process.
Applied Sciences and Engineering are two areas of
study that have suffered. Ironically, as we have raised
math and physics competencies, we have slashed budgets
for the Applied Sciences.
What a large percentage of people
in academia do not know yet is that the world of engineering
has come full circle. A number of years ago it was
the norm for students to have an aggressive series
of shop classes in drafting, electronics and mechanics
(metal work). As time has gone by and budgets have
tightened, these kinds of classes traditionally viewed
as blue-collar skills have given way to today’s college
preparatory format. In many ways this has indeed been
a good thing because it has prepared the larger mass
of students for college.
But, the elimination of Applies Science
and Industrial Technology education from our schools
has hurt those students who will be fitting our future
engineering roles as well as those who will fit future
skilled manufacturing roles. Our current education
constructs do not prepared students for what is really
needed to survive a current engineering degree course
load or an engineering job in the real world. Yes,
students in general are better prepared in basic college
level math then in the past, but the focus is very
theoretical and many students have difficulty making
the step to applied application once they reach later
years in college and the engineering work force.
What is missing today is a solid
blend of college prep and the availability of hard
science, practical applied science and manufacturing
skills. Few schools present themselves in this blended
format. We all hear the mantra to improve math and
science skills, but little is done, other than focusing
on yet another testing metric. So what can we do about
this and reverse the trend? And that is where the
FOCUS ON NASA team and our curriculum come into play.
Our organization was created with
the specific goal of designing and delivering unique
content specifically for STEM (science, technology,
engineering and math) content improvement in our high-schools.
We have now been running programs for four years and
have developed a track record of delivering content
that youth will embrace.
The fact that ALL of our programs
achieved 100% of program goals for the 2006/2007 school
year is testament to the design construct and the
youth that helped to design it. It is indeed the construct
and its deliver that are the reasons for our success.
Focus On NASA programs are designed with the cooperation
of youth and so are delivered in a way and on subject
matter that is embraced by youth. Further, the basic
building block of having our UGLI Youth Centers (pronounced
as "ugly"), as the place in the community where youth
can bond with like peers is a major reason for our
success. Creating a SAFE environment for GEEK kids
is an important keystone to the program sequence.
2007/2008 was originally hoped to
be a year of rapid growth for our programs, but sometimes
even the most successful programs suffer set-backs.
With the economic down turn of some of our corporate
sponsors and the fact that the state budget has set
back the planning of many programs, this has not turned
out to be the year we hoped. But progress is being
made.
We have organized a team of grant
writers to rebuild our formerly large program war
chest. But this will take several months to rebuild.
Our hopes for the 2007/2008 school year are still
to field at least 2 FRC robotics teams. We have FOUR
groups developing teams in the Chicago area, but two
of the four are just getting started. Further, we
have three new UGLI centers in development and get
contacted about once a week for information on creating
one.
We are going to shortly announce
a major step forward in our series of Focus on NASA
programs. Focus On NASA has redesigned our program
management methodology so that we can rapidly expand
as we identify partner schools and funding. The process
of the way this works is very unique and should deliver
high quality content less costly than in the past
by rotating
Whitney Young of Chicago is presently
one of the hopeful locations of an FRC program along
with a new program in McHenry County. We had also
begun to develop a team in Naperville/Aurora, but
the funding for that program series backed out the
first week of September. So, Naperville looks like
it will have to wait for the 2008/2009 school year.
Part of the purpose of this document
is to plant a seed for the creation of a robotics
club or program in middle and high-school, even if
your school is not quite ready for an FRC program
as in our Team Challenger program. But we do not want
schools to wait to start. We can help them to organize
a low cost small robotics program NOW in preparation
for a future FRC program.
Further, the Windy City Robotics
Challenge (WCRC), Chicago’s home grown robotics competition,
will be held October of 2008. This will include several
different kinds of robotics competitions for school
age children. This will also be very economical for
schools to participate.
The last thing we would like to plant
a seed on is our hope to put together an AP Robotics
class curriculum for high-schools that would be 1/4
electronics, ¼ computer programming and ½ design and
fabrication. The idea is to create a class that blends
engineering with applied skill, and focus the lesson
plans on designing robots. The end game of course
would be to use these students as members of the FRC
team for that school. We are inviting teachers to
join a committee looking into developing such a class.
What we meant by engineering has
"come full circle", earlier in this message, is that
classes like computer-aided design is not enough.
Math is not enough. You need to understand the applied
manufacturing skill behind design, or if you do not
all you end up with is very neat and pretty designs
that do not work. The kind of kind of hybrid class
we described would be an important experience for
the college bound future engineer. This might be something
perfect for the junior or senior youth who is already
fairly set toward a path of an engineering degree.
The simple fact is, STEM (science,
engineering, technology and math) are hot commodities
especially if they feature a program that connect
with the youth. One based upon building a very large
robot (from scratch) weighing 150lbs and can move
at 15 feet per second is a good start. Or imagine
building a high-energy rocket that will launch a mile
high. These are the kinds of programs we have built
at Focus On NASA and we have raised more then just
a couple eyebrows in doing so.
Yours,
Jeff Gerhardt
Creator of Focus on NASA
Program Director of B2B and Team
Challenger