www.CurrentGeneration.org : Today's Students Creating Brightening the World Locally and Globally.

Purpose & objective

The purpose of this presentation is to provide a concrete example of a transdisciplinary, just-in-time authentic project based learning that is effective at developing competencies, delivering content, uncovering passions and doing good in the world, even at a high school level.

Students are inspired to learn disciplines that were previously uncomfortable because they have an interconnected purpose. Suddenly voice, grammar, complimentary colours and second languages are important if we are going to communicate with grant funders, and global peers through video, grants, letters, and posters.

While the maker movement has made a tangible impact at the k-8 level, there are few examples of transdisciplinary projects at the high school level that also deliver reliable curricular content while simultaneously developing the competencies required for the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Current Generation is providing a "during school" and "after-school" opportunity to use their learning to directly impact the lives of other students around the world. This is changing the perspective of engineering from a cold-hearted way to make a competition robot to a warm-hearted way to make the world a better place. This seems to be very attractive to females. We range between 80% and 100% females in engineering at the high school level year after year, which is a far higher than the norm. Skye speaks eloquently and passionately about her transformation in her TED Talk.

https://www.ted.com/talks/skye_ables_it_s_2019_the_world_needs_women

Of my graduating females, none of them considered engineering prior to CurrentGeneration.org and 100% of them are attending universities for Engineering.

Outline

We anticipate more than one presentation format. It could be an interactive poster session where my students give their elevator pitch, but then also teach participants how to solder by installing LEDs and Resistors in their circuit board. Typically, our students run such a booth for a few hours so that participants can crowd-create some lights. The remainder of this proposal will assume a 1 hour lecture.
Students will greet participants at the door. Others will introduce themselves with a hand shake, finding a little something about the participant and showing the lights that they make prior to the start of the presentation (15 min prior). The lecture will commence with a student description of Hailey and Maria and their struggle in light poverty. Another student will describe what it is like being a member of today's generation of students and their struggle in school. (5 min) The teacher will then describe the process of how Current Generation came to be and the high level aims of the program (10 min). Students will then discuss how that high level translates into their day to day work as they integrate their english, art, accounting, journalism, social studies, physics and engineering into a philanthropic project. They will talk about how they discover new passions that change the trajectory of their lives. (15 min). A teacher will showcase three exemplar students who are now attending university with a different experience because of Current Generation (5 min). The talk will close with a call to action and a list of resources where they can begin their own program, perhaps around light poverty or preferably around something personally important to them.

Supporting research

The Global Educator by Julie Lindsay
Connection-Based Learning by Sean Robinson
Teaching in the 4th Industrial Revolution: Standing on the Precipice by Armand Doucet