Early career tech programs come to Morgan middle schools
Above left, Agriscience teacher Morgan McCutcheon and Career Technical Director Jeremy Childers teach Lacey’s Spring eighth grade students about measuring tools. Above right, eighth grade students at Lacey’s Spring School learn about measuring tools this month as part of the We Build it Better program.
For the Enquirer
Soon, all eight middle schools in the Morgan County school district will have a program to prepare students for career technical education if they plan to pursue it in high school, covering everything from hand-tool knowledge to learning about coding and 3D printing.
Morgan County school officials partnered with Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, to introduce the We Build It Better program this school year. The 18-week course covers the areas of program engineering, manufacturing and computer science and each school is given a rolling Snap-on toolbox with tools and materials students use to complete projects.
Lacey’s Spring agricultural science teacher Morgan McCutcheon is leading the We Build it Better program at the school this year with all 30 eighth grade students in the program.
“At the end of the 18-week course, students will develop their own individual product, where they can do it by themselves or work as a team,” McCutcheon said. “They have to figure out the cost, what they can sell it for, how they’re going to market it and develop a business plan. Before the individual product, they will work in teams to develop several products such as a battery-powered car and a model airplane.” Career Technical Director and district spokesperson Jeremy Childers said the We Build it Better program feeds into most of the programs at Morgan County Career Technical Park, the school district’s career technical education center.
“Our job is to expose students to as many things as we can and pique their interest in junior high, so when they get to high school, they are not wasting any time on anything,” Childers said. “We want our students to have a plan.” Childers said he expects this focus on hands-on STEM courses to improve the district’s middle school science proficiency. Lacey’s Spring School and Danville Middle received their Snap-on toolboxes this month and two more have been ordered for Priceville Junior High and Cotaco School.
McCutcheon said she will spend around two to three weeks on each section of the course.
This month, Lacey’s Spring eighth graders were constructing a timeline for their projects on the classroom whiteboard, learning how to set deadlines on their project phases.
The program begins with teaching students about safety and leadership in the workplace, including up-to-date Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. Students will then learn precision manufacturing and familiarize themselves with hand tools.
“Then we get into TinkerCAD, which is 3D printing, and then we’ll learn electricity and fiber optics,” McCutcheon said.
Students will then learn how to measure electrical current by using a digital ohmmeter, something Childers says they must know to work in fields such as automotive or HVAC.
“Every student who comes through auto tech will have a credential in a digital ohmmeter,” Childers said. “Any place that has a robot, in maintenance, anyone who can use an (ohmmeter) can track down electrical problems in those robots.” With the computer science piece, students learn how to code and program a small singleboard computer called a Raspberry Pi. Students will also build and test electronic circuit boards by connecting resistors and semiconductors on a small construction base called a protoboard.
Childers said all middle schools will have the We Build it Better programs installed in their curriculum by the end of the school year.
