Erik Schettig, Jennifer Kubacki, Bianca McGhee and Sara Morey

The team’s innovative teaching idea, “Engineering and Design Academy,” focuses on using a cross-discipline approach to Project Based Learning (PBL) in order to promote 21st century learning skills in the classroom. With the Voya grant, they hope to purchase the building materials and data collection equipment necessary to conduct experiments involving physics, chemistry and engineering. In conjunction with an egg drop experiment in their physics class, students will design support structures to protect the falling egg in their engineering class. Similarly, students will engineer a prototype to utilize during a water filtration and purification chemistry experiment. By applying concepts in cross-disciplinary situations, Schettig and his team believe students will better retain knowledge and will be more likely to utilize it in the future.