SCP schools first in state to offer engineering design courses to their students

Courses will give hands-on experience to students thanks to numerous industry and business sponsors

St. Charles Parish Public Schools continues to blaze a new trail in Louisiana by becoming the first school district in the state to offer engineering design courses.

The engineering program, which will be offered at the Satellite Center, will consist of two separate courses. The first course, Engineering Design I, will begin this fall, while the second course, Engineering Design II, will start next spring. Both courses will offer plenty of hands-on experience, supplemented with presentations, group projects and technical writing.

“There was a lot of interest from the local industry and engineering firms, along with students and their parents, in getting this program started,” Susan Boudreaux, school-to-career specialist, said.

Engineering Design I is a project based course designed to introduce students to the field of engineering and engineering design. The course will cover topics such as design processes, quality assurances and fluids systems. The engineering design principles and practices related to each of the systems will be emphasized through hands-on experiences using industrial quality equipment and software.
Engineering Design II is designed to introduce the engineering topics of mechanical, thermal and electrical systems. Like the first course, hands-on training will help the students get a better idea of what an engineer does and how the applications are applied in the real world.

The course’s industry/business sponsors, Cytec Industries, Dow, Entergy/Waterford III, Monsanto, Motiva, Shell, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Valero and Wink, along with the advisory board, have helped the school system design the courses. Some of the sponsors will also allow the students to get on-site training.

“I think it’s important for students to get exposure to engineering while they are still thinking about colleges,” Boudreaux said. “It will allow them to see the practical application of engineering because they will be able to go on field trips to local industry/businesses.

“The benefits are far reaching due to both local industry and post-secondary educational involvement.”

Nicholls State University and the University of New Orleans are the program’s educational sponsors and there is a possibility that UNO would accept college credit for the course.

In addition to the engineering program, the Satellite Center will also offer physics year-round. Boudreaux hopes that this class, which is the same as the physics course taught at the high schools, would help students avoid any possible scheduling conflicts.

The school system has already held two recruitment events for the program and interest seems to be high.

“The recruitment event went well,” Boudreaux said. “We wanted to keep it interactive, so Amatrol brought three training units and the students were split into groups so that they could all get their hands on the equipment.

“Everybody did a great job and the event was both interactive and educational.”

Amatrol, which is an industry leader in skill-based, interactive technical learning, will supply training equipment for the program, as well as a multimedia curriculum that the students will load onto their laptops.