Picture a physicist. What does this person look like? Typically the answers are like Einstein or Sheldon from Big Bang. Over ninety-five percent of students asked will picture a white male. Now picture the typical mix of students in an inner-city US High School. For nearly everybody, these two pictures don't match. Physics and engineering is not nearly as diverse as it needs to be. My goal as a former college professor transitioning to teaching high school, is to give more women, minorities and other underserved populations a positive exposure to physics in high school so we can start making the physics community more diverse and inclusive.
Many students express interest in engineering majors.
Our students are bright and motivated, but they just do not have the same exposure to STEM that their richer peers have. This means many of our students haven't experienced what engineering is really like in their schooling or extra curricular activities. Consequently it is even more important that I provide my students realistic STEM projects as part of our physics curriculum. These experiences will encourage the students to consider STEM careers and give them a chance apply their knowledge.
My Project
Engineering is one of the top major choices of students at my school. However many of our students have not had the opportunity to do a engineering project either in school or as an extracurricular project because most of our students are low income and have a school career dominated by math and reading test preparation. I am hoping to address this by having the students complete a capstone rocketry competition in my physics class.
The students will design the rockets, build them, predict a final height and launch them to test their prediction.
This project will allow my students a chance to experience the excitement of physics and engineering. It is my hope that they will be inspired to try physics and engineering majors in college.
For our project we need base model rocket kits, some options to test different configurations of the rockets, an altimeter to measure height and speed of the rockets, engines to launch the rockets and some art supplies to allow the students to be creative in decorating their rockets.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Johnson and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
