Educational Leadership

forensics project involving English, science, math, and world history. The selected English standards might focus on building understanding with technical text or analyzing related fiction and nonfiction. In science, the project might highlight the structure and purpose of DNA. Math standards might focus on logarithmic equations to apply Newton’s law of cooling. World history might look at war crimes and the role that forensics played in such events as the Nuremberg trials. The tool helps ensure that the project is explicit about the learning objectives it is designed to support, and not simply a fun exercise.

Because industry partners are involved in project design, students experience real-world applications and meet working adults. Industry partners can often serve as clients for projects, not only helping to structure the work but also providing feedback to students on what performing to industry standards and expectations actually entails.

Element 3: Work-Based Learning

By experiencing the workplace and working alongside professionals, students deepen their understanding of STEM’s relevance to their career aspirations and postsecondary plans. This kind of work-based learning can take many forms. Mentoring and job shadowing introduce students to offices, laboratories, manufacturing facilities, and a wide range of working professionals. Even many of our most advantaged students have little or no contact with working adults or much awareness of the range of career opportunities in STEM fields. And for disadvantaged students who have rarely ventured out of their immediate communities, a downtown high-rise office of an engineer or architect might just as well be located on another planet.

But work-based learning is about
much more than career awareness. As it
evolves into more sophisticated experi-
ences for students, it begins to involve
them in real work under the guidance
of industry professionals. Internships,
paid and unpaid, are the best-known
examples of this kind of opportunity.
However, internship opportunities are
difficult to provide for large numbers
of students. Geography often poses
major challenges, as do the logistics of
finding and managing large numbers of
internship opportunities.

Resources for STEM
Creating an Integrated Curriculum

n Engineering and biomedical science curriculum: Project Lead the Way ( www.pltw.org)

n Pre-algebra and algebra support curriculum in engineering: www . connectedcalifornia.org/curriculum/ support.php

n Biomedical and health science curriculum: www.connectedcalifornia .org/curriculum/ units.php

n Business, economic, and technology skills curriculum from the Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (PAS) Curriculum: http://fordpas.org

n Digital media arts curriculum from the Education Development Center: http://dma.edc.org

STEM/Linked Learning Resources

n Alliance for Regional Collaboration to Heighten Educational Success: www.arches-cal.org

n ACME Animation: www.acme animation.org

n California STEM Learning Network: http://californiastem.org

n Career Academy Support Network: http://casn.berkeley.edu

nities available to many more students, regardless of the locations of schools and industry partners. For example, Acme Animation, an early pioneer in “virtual apprenticeship,” uses the web and videoconferencing to connect students in animation classes with professional animators at Warner Brothers, Dream Works, and other motion picture studios. Students work on a carefully structured design challenge (for example, animating a bouncing ball), which professionals then critique to industry standards.

Building on Acme Animation’s approach, ConnectEd is collaborating with Chevron to develop a series of engineering- and energy-related design challenges for students in academies of engineering and for the growing number of green technology partnership academies in California. These design challenges may involve different kinds of pipeline valves, for example, or LED displays monitoring fuel flow through land-based pipeline systems. Through ConnectEd Studios, students will be able to post their work in online portfolios for review by both their teachers and industry professionals at Chevron, and teachers will receive support in online project planning.

Another promising work-based learning strategy is school-based enterprise, student-led business or community service initiatives in which students design, produce, and deliver real products and services. For example, in collaboration with a local utility, students engage in energy audits for local homeowners and small businesses. Alternatively, schools may team with a local economic development agency to undertake environmental impact analyses. School-based enterprise can be especially useful in schools with limited access to industry partners and other work-based learning opportunities.