Year one of the full implementation of the ACME (Architecture, construction, mechatronics and engineering) academies at Warren Central and Vicksburg high schools has been a success.

The two schools have found different ways to bring ACME into the classroom, but whether it is learning about guillotines or building catapults and rockets, the key has been sparking students’ interests through hands-on projects and lessons.

At Warren Central, the academy students are podded into groups where the majority of the students in the academy have the same teachers for math, science, English and history. The pods enable them to create projects that followed the students from course to course, namely one where they learned about the guillotine.

“For the project involving the guillotine, we researched rumors where the eyeballs would move after the head was cut off and we looked at the cell’s lifespan and how long it could stay alive and function without oxygen,” Brittany Fuller, who teaches ACME biology at WC, said. “They were already excited about it because they had already heard in Ms. (Lindsey) Jordan’s class what they had to look forward to in biology. I think it builds on that excitement when they have pieces and parts in every class.”

In English, they read about guillotines, in history they learned about how they were invented during the French Revolution and in the Intro to ACME course, they sketched models on the computer.

“It has been really easy to implement the ACME portion into the world history class because we hit massive high notes when we talk about all the different inventions that were created during the French Revolution and then we go into the Industrial Revolution,” Richard Scoggins, who teaches ACME world history at WC, said.

The academies at Vicksburg aren’t fully podded this year, but they still found ways for the students to work on a shared project in multiple classes as they worked together in math, science and history to learn about and build catapults.

“It was kind of cool,” Peyton McKenzie, a freshman a Vicksburg, said. “Instead of working on a bunch of different projects, you get to see how all your different subjects go into this one thing. Math, science and history all come into it.”

Students also built rockets they will be launching later this month and are in the process of building birdhouses in the Intro to ACME course.

“I think the students like it because it’s not a typical classroom,” Vicksburg ACME teacher Cassandra Farrish said. “You are never going to walk into my classroom and see us just sitting and doing nothing. It is organized chaos. They are on the floor, on the tables, walking around. I think that just adds to it.”

This year’s freshmen class will be the first group to be in the academies during all four years of high school. Vicksburg will be fully podded next year and Warren Central already has plans to build upon the shared projects including a yearlong focus on airplanes next year.

Students in the ACME program will also likely have the unique opportunity to be very involved in planning how their schools will look as construction begins following the passage of the school district’s bond referendum.

“One of their projects this year was to design some of the new additions to WCHS,” Warren Central ACME coordinator Lindsey Jordan said of the upper level ACME students. “They designed a common area and media center. Another thing they did was meet with the architect as he worked to update GYM A and the students pointed out that a permanent concession stand was needed but was not in the plans. As the upgrades to our school progress, I see a monumental opportunity for our ACME students to participate in the changes that are made here at our school.”