By Martha Jacob – News Democrat
Clermont Northeastern School District has been chosen to become one of three districts in Ohio to participate in an innovative new program called Engineer Your World.
Engineer Your World is a student-centered high school curriculum that engages learners in authentic engineering experiences.
CNE High School Principal TJ Glassmeyer and Superintendent Michael Brandt first found out about the program after attending the Ohio School Boards Association Conference in November, Glassmeyer said.
“After talking to the representatives from the University of Texas about the program, we were both extremely excited about it and hoped we would be able to offer it to our students,” Glassmeyer said.
On Engineer Your World’s website, the program is described as a curriculum that combines rigorous core concepts to deliver a rich, socially relevant, student-directed challenge.
The program’s curriculum engages all students from diverse backgrounds, abilities and interests from a wide range of educational environments.
The Engineer Your World program presents core engineering concepts to students and makes engineering accessible, exciting and relevant.
Educator support equips and empowers teachers and students to build resilient problem solvers in an affordable, achievable, one-year program.
“This program is a product of the UTeachEngineering project at The University of Texas at Austin,” Glassmeyer said. “This program is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Math and Science Partnership program.”
The UTeachEngineering program will offer degree programs for pre-service and in-service teachers of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, according to engineeryourworld.org.
Researchers from the agency investigate a variety of questions related to student learning outcomes in secondary engineering, equity in access to secondary engineering education, argumentation in the engineering classroom and the development of adaptive expertise in secondary engineering educators, all work that informs the ongoing improvement of Engineer Your World.
The curriculum highlights engineering’s potential to impact human lives and the world around them. Students will learn about designing products with users in mind, how solutions evolve over time, how data improves lives, how to design products used in everyday life, how to use computation and programming skills and more.
“When I shared the information about this program with our science department they were also extremely excited about it. I believe the way the course is structured is going to excite our students as well, and engage them in the engineering process,” Glassmeyer said.
He plans to offer one section of the course next year and then expand the program over the next five years.