Midlands center focuses on project-based learning

Columbia Regional Business Report
www.columbiabusinessreport.com
By Mike Fitts 

In a new facility situated among fields near Chapin, a series of labs contain an array of science and engineering experiments.
 
In one lab, researchers have been seeking to unlock the puzzles of alternative energy production. A series of solar panels line one area, part of attempts to demonstrate green ways to power a smartphone. Other tables contain experiments seeking to demonstrate the best use of wind power or batteries.
 
Down the hall in other labs, experiments focus on aerospace, biomedical science and numerous other fields, all in new and spacious lab facilities. This is not, however, some new research facility affiliated with the University of South Carolina, Clemson University or Midlands Technical College. This is high school, with a scientific and open-minded twist.
 
The Center for Advanced Technical Studies in Lexington-Richland School District 5 opened last fall. The center brings together students from across the district to work in 17 areas of study for hands-on work and project-based learning.
 
Some of the fields are the more traditional areas of high school technical classroom, such as automotive maintenance and repair.
 
Many others, however, give students avenues to work in areas that are beyond the traditional high school curriculum, but could give them an important leg up on new careers, especially in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields.
 
The center is open to students from several nearby District 5 high schools who use their elective credit to take classes at the center in addition to academics at their schools.
 
According to the district, the curriculum has been designed to meet both academic and industry standards. The explicit goal: get students ready for the college and career fields that the economy will support in the future.
 
“The center’s design, curriculum and career focus is a direct response to our students and businesses’ needs,” District 5 Superintendent Steve Hefner said.
 
It is attracting students who might not have wanted to be in a more traditional “shop” class — 25 of the classes have been given honors credit.
 
This helps to avoid some of the stigma that still is attached in some minds to such “shop” classes, said Al Gates, the center’s assistant director.
 
Much of the curriculum at the center is designed around projects and research, rather than textbooks or classroom lectures from the teacher. Being able to plan and complete such projects is an important indicator of educational achievement, Gates said.
 
“It shows that you know how to think,” he said.
 
That hands-on career emphasis has appeal to students; the biomedical science program, for instance, has almost 70 students in its first year. For instructor Julie Krusen, that kind of learning means more coaching than standing and lecturing or citing the textbook.
 
“Google is our textbook,” Krusen said.
 
Instead, students are exploring areas such as prosthetics and developing projects to demonstrate what they’ve learned. Krusen compares it to the TV show House M.D. with a mystery for the students to research and solve. About 70% of the students are looking ahead to medical school, Krusen said.
 
Having a new program means developing a curriculum even as students are taking the first of two years of classes, Krusen said. The program just received national accreditation that will transfer credit to many colleges, including the University of South Carolina.
 
Hands-on work is the theme throughout the center’s classrooms. In the biosphere science lab, a green John Deere tractor is in the middle of the room. The engineering students worked with others from the center to design and build a trebuchet, a type of medieval catapult, to fling pumpkins in a contest.
 
All of this is done with an eye to career clusters that will help the students and South Carolina, according to the district. The center also benefits from more than 200 business advisers who help in planning the curriculum, according to District 5. “Together, we ensure our programs are both rigorous and relevant,” center Director James Couch said.
 
The center already receives strong support from Michelin, the tire manufacturer that employs more than 8,000 in South Carolina. Michelin sees the center as a source for the mechanical experts who will keep its tire plant equipment working in the future, Gates said.
 
The center is attracting attention from educators as a program to emulate, and already has been toured in its first year by educational officials from around the state and the nation.
 
“The center is a model for the education of future generations,” Couch said.
 
More is to come. Next to the center, District 5 is constructing a magnet high school with a major career focus.
 
Slated to open in the fall, Spring Hill High School will be available to students across the district to apply for enrollment.
 
The high school will be divided into five academies: entrepreneurial, engineering, entertainment, environmental studies and exercise science, with separate focus areas in each.
 
Students at Spring Hill will be able to take a class schedule focused on computer engineering, graphic arts or hospitality, among many other areas. The high school’s curriculum was designed with a strong emphasis on career training, according to the district, and many programs will be aligned with the center next door.
 
None of this is cheap; expenses mount when students are supplied with top-level computer design software, access to a 3-D printer for models and other sophisticated equipment, as they are at the center.
 
District 5 believes that costs are reasonable and in line with other new high schools in the state, especially with the assistance it has received from business partners.
 
“South Carolina’s economic destiny is dependent on providing the very best workforce for our future careers,” Hefner said.