On Monday, Jan. 25, a showcase of Madison County High School’s Career-Technical Education (CTE) courses that was sponsored by the Southern Region Education Board (SREB) was held.
The course curriculum for the class was developed by SREB as part of their Advance Career (AC) initiative.
The goal of AC is to provide rigorous career training in the academics. Madison County High School was selected as the power and energy showcase school due to the school’s tremendous growth as well as its strong industry ties in the community and the partnerships MCHS has created with local businesses such as Tri-County Electric and Duke Energy.
The partnerships have provided guest speakers and field trips to the class and there are plans in the future to add the benefit of engineering mentors, job shadowing and internships.
The showcase on Jan. 25 allowed other schools from both Florida and Georgia that were interested in a similar power and energy program to come in, visit and observe the class to determine if they would be interested in initiating a similar program in their schools.
The activities of the showcase within the classroom included visits to the year one and year two courses, a panel of school personnel and students were able to answer visitor questions. To wrap up the program, the MCHS culinary program that is taught by Robin Smith hosted lunch.
This is the second year that MCHS has offered the power and energy program, which started with 13 students in the first year and only one course. Now the program has two courses with 45 students enrolled in course one and 10 that are continuing on with course two.
The curriculum covers all aspects of power generation and distribution, from power plant operation to circuitry. The courses are entirely based on project-based learning in which students receive the challenge that comes with a series of authentic tasks that could be found within the power and energy industry.
The project for the showcase was to build a hydraulic lift that could move the most coal (or in the case of the classroom, gravel). The project posed a challenge, as students not only presented their models, but also took part in a competition to see whose lift was the most resourceful at its planned use.
Past projects of the class have included building a DC-powered motor, a hydroelectric generator and a heat exchanger.