can directly impact students’ lives and communities to inform the direction of the unit plan. It is his hope that these and the future curricula he will work on will help to include and empower more diverse students to see themselves in the fields of science and engineering, as well as see themselves as advocates for change and innovation in their communities. Aaron Richardson is a trained horticulturist with fifteen years of experience in the field dating back to his time in the National FFA Youth Organization, and has gone on to acquire Bachelor’s degrees in Horticulture, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and Biology Education from the University of Connecticut (UConn). Aaron is currently a Master’s student
pedagogy (CRP) with othersubjects. The IMPACT RPP also developed questions that help educators determine whethertheir lessons follow CRP and CT practices. Computational Thinking Culturally Responsive Pedagogy1. In what ways does the learning experience 1. In what ways is the context of the experience ask students to engage in Abstraction, i.e. connected to your students’ cultural and removing unnecessary detail and identifying linguistic backgrounds? common features? 2. In what ways are students encouraged to2. In what ways does the learning experience make connections to their home/community ask students to engage
imagined use scenarios. Share designs with users and implement imagined use scenarios. Receive feedback from both users and peers. Share the ideas for improvement. Reflect: Refine your design. Recognize what you learned from others. Revise the designs based on feedback. Reflect on the lessons students learned from users and peers, the impacts of their designs, and their contributions to the solutions. DESIGN BRIEF Goal: Design a piece of playground equipment for community people by understanding various users’ needs and values. Criteria: Adaptability: Consider a group of
undergraduates from Illinois State University havedesigned informal, after-school engineering-related activitiesfocusing on robotics, green energy, and automation. An emphasisis placed on activities and partnerships that promote knowledge,engagement, and interest in STEM fields in underserved schoolsand communities. To learn more about SUPERCHARGE, pleasevisit: https://about.illinoisstate.edu/supercharge/.This resource exchange presents activities from the final unit of theprogram's first year. In this project, high school students will buildand experiment with a smart wireless weather station (Figure 1)and indoor climate console (Figure 3) with the goal of collectingand analyzing data to learn about the climate in their community