Teachers learn engineering skills
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, October 1, 2003
Warren Central Junior High teacher Torey Yates tries her skills at building a bridge structure on a computer during a Transportation and Civil Engineering training session Tuesday at the Vicksburg Convention Center. (Melanie Duncan ThortisThe Vicksburg Post)
(10/01/03)With an eye toward nurturing future engineers who may work in Vicksburg, some public school teachers have been learning how to build a bridge a real bridge and other skills they’ll take back to their classrooms.
About 14 teachers from the Vicksburg Warren School District and from school districts in Hinds, Sharkey and Issaquena counties used computer programs to learn how to design and construct a bridge to a certain load capacity.
During the day-long training session, the educators tinkered with other computer programs and hands-on activities as part of theTransportation and Civil Engineering (TRAC) program.
The courses, designed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation officials, offer students hands-on and real-life problems in math, science and social science courses. As opposed to “numbers-only” problems, teachers can show students how knowledge is used in workplaces.
“Teachers are teaching normal high school concepts of physical science, math, and we’re trying to give them engineering and transportation examples they can use when teaching those things,” said Tate Jackson, national TRAC manager.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation and the state Department of Education partnered to provide the program to nearly 175 schools across the state as part of the curriculum of career discovery, a tech-prep course.
The career discovery course is required for seventh-graders in the Vicksburg Warren School District.
Torey Yates, who teaches the class at Warren Central Junior High School, said the TRAC program will fit perfectly with the curriculum.
In the class, students choose from job “clusters” to research and learn about specific careers. Yates said the TRAC programs can fit into clusters that include agriculture, construction, and architecture and engineering fields.
“We try to really emphasize engineering because Waterways Experiment Station is such an important part of the community,” Yates said. She added that the program includes agricultural problem-solving as well, just another reason to offer the activities to Vicksburgers.
Agriculture is an element of Vicksburg’s economy because the city is adjacent to the Mississippi and Louisiana deltas. Vicksburg is a global engineering and supercomputing center due to Army Corps of Engineers installations here.
Engineers are also needed in the transportation field, said Dick Hall, Central District transportation commissioner in giving a reason for the department’s push for the program.
“It’s an excellent program for school children,” he said. “We are attempting to catch children’s attention in the seventh grade to try to get them interested in engineering.”