Career Opportunities Can Begin at a Young Age

GRANTS, NM--Mr. Michael Dodds’ classroom at Laguna-Acoma Jr./Sr. High School is an active and involved environment where students have fun finding their career path with the help of the Career and Technical Education program.

Dodds bases his curriculum on his own experience in the fields of construction and automotive design. In fact, his family has long worked in technology fields, and that makes Dodds an asset in the school’s efforts to give students a broader foundation for their future as professionals.

Just last week Dodds’ students had a car race in the hallway outside their classroom. It's helpful that Dodds has background experience in car design, so he also teaches them the process of product design. The students made their own cars as an exercise in understanding how things work and operate.

“They worked on the project together. There was no soldering, only tying wires together and taping them. But they did their own wiring, and some of them did a little better than others, but they could make their connections pretty well without any heavy technology.”

“A lot of this was based off of the product design process because they needed to design their own race car,” Dodds explained. Needless to say, the students were involved and had a lot of fun building their own Maseratis and Lamborghinis.

“Some batteries died in the middle of it, I guess I played with them too much,” the instructor admitted. “Anyway, they have quite a collection.”

A few of the cars that survived the big race. A raspberry pi computer motherboard like one that is used in a Christmas light show.

“We do everything from designing backpacks, designing cars, designing houses, designing living room layouts,” Dodds explained. “I mean all this stuff applies, so I give them all the basic information. When they get to the high school level and they start down the career path, that they choose they will have a lot of this knowledge behind them.”

A video watched by the class helped get them excited about designing their own car. In the video a customer said, “I want a luxury sports car, and I want my luxury sports car to be fast. I don't care so much about safety; I just want it to be fast.” The instructor said that the kids got really excited about that project.

In the design process the students considered the different surfaces for different designs. They could gain an understanding of designing a product so that it fits the use that makes sense.

“We have a rubric, which we put up on the wall. If we drove our cars over here, they were fast, but they weren't fast if we drove them over there. How does that satisfy your customer? It’s important that we are designing a quality product that's durable and that's going to hold together,” Dodds impressed.

Dodds uses manuals from the We Build it Better program which is designed to “lay a foundation for students to understand the process of developing a new product and equipping them with the skills to design and create an innovative solution to a real-world industry-based challenge” in the fields of engineering, manufacturing, and computer science. (https://www.webuilditbetter. org/ ) In addition, the program has provided the school with a complete Snap-On toolbox of industry-grade tools.

“This program will help to get these kids started at the 7th and 8th grade level for construction and engineering. A lot of it is aircraft-based, but because of my construction background, and my dad is also from the aircraft industry, I was able to pull things together” to give my students a basic knowledge of those industries.

“We have enough tools here to set up seven groups at a time, so these kids can get the experience. I'm teaching them how to design circuit boards out of wire circuit boards and we're going to teach them computer programming. This programs raspberry pi computers to do what they want them to do.”

For example, Dodds explained that the extravagant light displays at Christmas time, when homeowners go all out with their decorations, are using raspberry pi computers, and he showed me a small motherboard, about the size of a deck of cards.

“They're using one of these, and they are programmed. They still must have a lot of electricity. We also teach them how the internet works, about electricity DC and AC. And now we're learning about fiber optic cables, too. It's really cool, because the program is not just strictly aircraft, it’s not strictly construction, it's very broad. We can show them how this knowledge, and this program, applies to just about any industry they want to work at.”

Beginning the CTE program in 7th or 8th grade will give the young people a foundation they can take into high school and will be enabling them to start a little more advanced.

“They could get a more complete CTE program if they started in 6th grade and finish all the way through their senior year in high school. In a lot of areas, they can actually graduate with their certificate in that industry. Instead of going through the whole new-hire process, all their education they have done in school, and also OSHA certification (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)” has prepared the students for their career when they graduate.

Dodds has a strong background in aeronautics. His father is currently working in that field as a sought-after inspector for a major aeronautics company. He showed me a model aircraft and explained, “They learn how to build an airplane and the parts of an airplane. The fuselage, the wings, and the main point is to teach them about how to use fasteners. It’s cool to know how to recognize fasteners, what the fasteners’ uses are, to know what they're capable of handling. We teach them about how a more complicated model would have lifts, or maybe if you tried to fly it like a paper airplane, would it go very far? They knew before we built these that they weren't going to fly because we had talked about wing design. It has those heavy bolts, and all other parts too, so there’s a lot more weight than this model.”

There are a lot of parts to consider in designing a plane that add to its weight. It’s a very complicated design when you consider the weight of the plane to the weight of the parts that are holding it together. In addition, there are the passengers, and the freight.

“It’s pretty challenging, but if that's your intellectual inclination this would be a great passenger jet that they're designing.” Dodds was enthusiastic and continued, “I have a model of that jet that my dad made for me, and I brought it over and showed it (to my classes). The kids are like, ‘Wow, that's neat!’

Dodds told me more about his family background, professionally. When he was born, his father was working for an experimental aircraft company and building a supersonic passenger plane. It was discontinued because it was too loud for the passengers. But recently they started building it again using the Con Air designs from back in the '90s. Now they have figured out how to make the planes fly quieter and a little safer, so they're back on the project.

Thanks to the teachers in the CTE program our students stay in school because they are interested and have something to look forward to.