Engineering courses offered in Mission CISD (Consolidated Independent School District) high schools have begun to evolve in a way that better exposes students to more aspects of engineering. A new curriculum called Engineering Your World is being introduced at two of the schools this year. It is a hands-on course developed by The University of Texas and NASA engineers. This is also one of the ways Mission CISD is continuing to support the growth of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) driven instruction at the high school level.
During the summer, teachers attended a two-week training in Austin, Texas to prepare for teaching the course. The teachers now have access to UTeach Engineering staff engineers and instructional coaches, monthly video-conferences and are a part of a professional learning community of about 80 teachers from 14 states. Implementation support is provided through a grant from the National Science Foundation; which helps keep the costs down for the district.
Veterans Memorial High School teacher, Nathanael Watt, says each unit of the course focuses on one or two major branches of engineering, including: mechanical, electrical, computer programming, chemical, aerospace, etc. He said the students work on a lot of group projects that take the students through the entire design process that includes: brainstorming solutions, research, prototyping, final design selections, testing designs, and result analysis.
During the school year, students in the class will design, build, and launch their own solutions to real-world engineering challenges. They learn to build a camera, launch a satellite, design a water system, and send robots on a hunt for lunar ice.
Watt said one of the added benefits of the program are the technical supplies that are provided through the Engineering Your World program not only save the schools money, but they help them challenge the students with more complex projects.
In August, Mission CISD was notified that Mission High School has been officially designated as a Texas-STEM, (T-STEM) academy through its implementation of STEM driven instruction. The Engineering Your World curriculum is being implemented at VMHS and Mission Collegiate High School.
Pictured from left to right are VMHS students Daniel Quintanilla and Rey Maldonado as they worked on a camera project. In this phase, they are testing materials they are considering using for their project.
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