Watching this video from the NBC evening news will help you understand the post that follows.

Yesterday, we had the privilege to visit the founder and board of the IGNITE program in Fredericksburg, Texas. The high school rocketry program, founded by teacher Brett Williams in the mid-nineties, has spread across the state and is moving across the borders.  TSTC is looking for ways to partner with the IGNITE/SystemsGo program as it grows.

The learning is entirely project-based.  Students work in teams to design working  hybrid rockets that meet the specifications for each part of the curriculum.  It has been very successful.  To quote Mr. Williams:

This is a whole new way of teaching. We really are working on not just educating our students, but developing them for the workforce. Coming out of this high school program, these students will understand design and development, testing, analysis, and program management - all things the industry needs in the workforce of tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from our trip (warning - low quality iPhone snaps ahead):

Brett Williams (right) in his classroom discussing rocket science with TSTC System Chancellor Dr. Bill Segura.

Another view of the Fredericksburg High School “rocket room.” TSTC Waco President Elton Stuckly is pictured facing the camera next to Dr. Segura. You can see from here that the room is part of an old auditorium which has been divided into rooms.

Redbird 10, designed by high school students,  which will be launched at White Sands.  They are hoping for 100,000 feet.

Redbird 10 fin detail. The legs behind give you an idea of scale.  This a big metal bird.

The nosecone, designed and built by the students, will likely carry a university research payload.

Access to valve area where the N2O (nitrous oxide) oxidizer will be released to facilitate the burning of the otherwise inert solid fuel.  This system is much safer than a standard solid fuel rocket in which the fuel and oxidizer are permanently mixed together.

Failure IS an option!  These are the remains of a rocket that crashed at White Sands, possibly due to a failure in the system which releases the oxidizer.  The students have been doing a failure analysis.

All of the technologies required to build a rocket are vital to the United States as a world power.  Here we see an increasingly rare sight - a real machine shop in a high school.  A consortium of local machine shops also help the students with their projects.

Some thoughts about the program:

• It works.  The students involved are going on to study engineering and engineering technologies in college
• There was a lot of inspiration and determination to do the impossible on the part of Brett Williams
• The Fredericksburg Independent School District and the entire community had great courage and confidence to make this possible
• It can be, and is being replicated

As Mark Long of TSTC Publishing said while we were there, “It would have been a good idea anywhere, but it happened here first for a reason.”  Kudos to those visionaries who were willing to put hard work behind their visions.  Lives are being changed because of it.

*STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

See the story over at e-Learning Pundit

During my recent trip to Galveston I used my new GPS device extensively. It performed very well. All of the proper turns and forks were easily navigated and the “text to voice” feature provides the necessary information without the driver looking away from the road. Now that I am using “Voice, American English - Jill” I’m not having anymore pesky problems with Farm-to-Market roads being misidentified as “Federated States of Micronesia” roads.

I am really pleased with the device. I also like the how easily it can be moved to a rental car or carried around on walking trips.

Conclusion: Highly recommended.

Over at Ed Chipalowski’s ACTE Blog, he has a post on helping to set a national agenda for CTE with the politicians. I made a comment or two. Go and read the post and comments and then come back.

Go ahead. I’ll wait for you.

OK, obviously I knew that no one was going to take money from the universities and give it to us. That is why I called it “a modest proposal.” It was intended to be almost as shocking and sarcastic as Swift’s suggestion that the children of Ireland be sold as meat.

My second and real suggestion, however, Ed likes. We need a national ad campaign aimed at changing the perception that parents have of CTE. If the false impressions changed, the money would follow. If you have any thoughts about that, post a comment here or there.

BTW - I love Jonathan Swift. If you haven’t ever actually read Gulliver’s Travels, the full text is available here. See if the “grand academy of Lagado” doesn’t put you in mind of some academy with which you are familiar.

TSTC Waco has a great little video on YouTube about the importance of technicians in daily life. Take a look at it and see if you don’t agree that the modern world would grind to a halt without them.

There are a lot of other great TSTC videos on YouTube.