In addition to the Certificates of Achievement that are awarded to area high school students, SWE-NESS has also participated in another program involving high school teachers, writing curriculum extensions for their science classes, using the Battleship Massachusetts in Fall River, MA as the "textbook".
Raytheon Company in Portsmouth, RI and the Battleship Massachusetts Education Department developed a joint program called RITE (Raytheon Inspiring Technology Exploration) for middle and high school teachers in the Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts areas. SWE-NESS member Patricia McHale from Raytheon coordinated the engineers on the program, each teamed with a high school or middle school teacher for two weeks in July 2001. SWE-NESS provided another member, Career Guidance Chair Susan Anderson, as a participating volunteer engineer (formerly from Raytheon).
The program's goals were to (1) produce a Technical Information Panel (TIP), approximately 2'x3', which would be mounted for the general public to view on the battleship; (2) develop two classroom curriculum plans on a type of technology; (3) develop a classroom curriculum plan on a career associated with that technology. The curriculum plans were to be bound in a notebook and given to each teacher, as well as a CD. They were also to be available for use by all teachers from RI and southeastern Massachusetts who would use the Battleship as an extension field trip for their classroom.
Each participating teacher (11) chose a technology that she/he was interested in, and was paired with an engineer (10) to help them in the technical portion of it. The teachers worked on the battleship for two weeks, primarily on their own, researching the ship and how the technology they chose related to it. Although the engineers could work with the teachers daily if they wanted to, most did not due to their work commitments at Raytheon, so communication was done primarily by email.
Susan worked nearly every day with her assigned teacher. She helped the high school teacher develop and produce the TIP, being familiar with graphics programs; the teacher helped by researching the text information for the panel and what portion of the ship to relate the panel to (Simple Machines was the technology topic). They brainstormed as to what the curriculum plans should be, and together wrote the plans and the technology behind the lesson. When another high school teacher's engineer partner had to go on travel the second week, the NESS volunteer offered to help that teacher as well, and actually wrote the two technical curriculum plans, leaving the career one for the teacher to do (this teacher was a substitute history teacher and not as knowledgeable in science so she requested the help).
The RITE program was successful and will be continuing in future summers for area teachers. Both teacher and engineer benefited from learning from each other. The next time you visit Battleship Massachusetts, look for the large Simple Machines TIP located outside the door leading to the memorial room. You'll see SWE as one of the developers!
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