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Just after Thanksgiving, Anglophone East School District hosted the Atlantic Region New Pedagogies for Deeper Learning Summit. It was so fantastic that Michael Fullan, Joanne Quinn and Meg from NPDL, along with almost 300 educators from as close as the Atlantic Region and as far as Vancouver, Virginia and Iowa gathered to talk about the potential for Deeper Learning. While there continues to be lots of excitement and fantastic examples in the k-8 sphere, it seems a desert in the realm of high school. This makes it particularly honourable that Engineering Brightness high school students were the only students invited to speak on stage to this fantastic audience.

Braeden and Beth both spoke. Beth is very comfortable on stage and did a fantastic job as per normal. She has a different cool story about how she took action to address Ellen’s Law. You can hear much more about that in the video of her speech. It is Braeden that is the topic of this story.

Braeden self-identifies as an extreme introvert who would not be able to do any kind of public speaking. I watched a transformation at the World Maker Faire. During the first half of the first day of the Maker Faire, Braeden sat in the background, allowing the more extroverted female students to interact at the booth. However, the girls needed a break and left Braeden and Kaleigh alone at the booth. He was put on the spot and magic happened. HE FOUND HIS VOICE! Only  48 hours later, he was volunteering to speak at the NPDL summit.

Current Generation is a fantastic example of True Personalized learning where, each student finds their area of strength AND growth. While Braeden was quite comfortable with the STEM portions, for him, finding his voice was the real development. Now his voice is heard in class, with his peers all the time. Transformational.

Insert Speech text here…

A student perspective given at the Atlantic Regional Liberal Summit attended by the Provincial Premier’s, the Federal Ministers and federal MPs.

As an Integrated Science student, a big part of second semester is the opportunity to do research, and I was so thankful to have done Current Generation before I started the research.
Current Generation and all the experiences it gave me, have lead me to one of the greatest experiences I have ever had: the opportunity to work with a group to study the uniformity and dosimetry of radiation when a 3D bolus is used in external beam radiation therapy for cancer treatment.

Having all the research opportunities pitched to us, we were told to expect having to learn to 3D model and 3D print, as well as a large time commitment greater than that anticipated when signing up for this program. I was the only one with experience in 3D printing and design already from Current Generation, as well as a history of time commitment on top of schooling. I could confidently dive into this research opportunity and explore my passion for medicine with minimal emotional trauma. Since these skills were different from those taught in regular high school, this made me appear even more qualified. In fact, my supervisor told me that there was a huge portion of people who wanted the same project I did, but I was chosen over the others.

I believe Current Generation has caused a chain reaction in my life. I was doing real work for real people, exploring a passion of mine, as well as learning plenty of other new skills not taught in first year university. It has allowed me to adapt and make my world bigger, which in turn has lead to more opportunities. I am hoping these will lead me to even more opportunities such as med school or wherever else my life may take me. Either way, I know very well that Current Generation was probably the best decision I ever made in high school.

A student perspective given at the Atlantic Regional Liberal Summit attended by the Provincial Premier’s, the Federal Ministers and federal MPs.

Current Generation-Engineering Brightness has had long term effects on me after leaving high school and starting post secondary education. I am in Dalhousie’s Integrated Science program, a competitive program accepting around 70 students from first year to take part, meaning that from the nearly 1000 students going into their first year, it was competitive. I had the same level of biology as many other kids, my marks weren’t valedictorian level good, nor was I an athlete. What made me different, was Current Generation-Engineering Brightness and the fact I was being the change I wanted to see in the world. This made me an individual and not just a number: B00766752.

Great, I got in. One thing I was not fully prepared for, was the challenge of first year university in an elite program such as Integrated Science. It was challenging in a way my high school had not prepared me for; more assignments in a week than I had in a semester of high school and an environment where the stress of succeeding is higher than any other time in my life (I mean after all I am paying for my school, any amount of effort less than my all was a waste of my own money). It was challenging, but I had the environment of
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness for the last few years, and I could use
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness to help me get through the tough days. As cheesy at it sounds, I’d remind myself of my involvement within EB when times got particularly stressful or busy. Could I really get all this work done on time? of course I could, I’d designed and built my own light that was now in the Dominican Republic. When I wake up early in the morning and sleeping until noon sounds like the best idea ever, I get up and go to class no matter how much I dislike earth science labs because
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness instilled the ideology that my education was an important tool for both myself but even more important, for helping others. Even though I don’t see first hand how learning about igneous rock composition will help others, that mentality has remained across all my subjects.

Current Generation-Engineering Brightness has given me a set of skills and mentality that I can draw from to help me in every other aspect of my life.
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness has given purpose to my learning and strength to persevere. The purpose of learning is to build capacity so that I can help others.

A student perspective given at the Atlantic Regional Liberal Summit attended by the Provincial Premier’s, the Federal Ministers and federal MPs.

I’ve been a part of
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness since grade 10. I am currently a first year university student. I’m here today to talk to you, the Atlantic Summit of Liberal Federal Ministers, Premiers from all four provinces and MLAs, about my experience with
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness, the skills I developed and how it changed the trajectory of my life.

I learned a lot during my time with
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness including: CAD work, soldering, the dynamics of electricity, technical writing for presentation proposals and even empathy.

For me, The biggest thing that came from
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness was confidence and public speaking. What a lot of people don’t realize is that ever since I was little I have had a speech impediment due to surgical complications resulting in paralysis in my throat. This has always affected the way I talk, and caused me great anxiety when any form of presentation was proposed. I was unable to present to people. I would stand in silence and wait to be told to sit back down. I would turn red, sweat and hyperventilate when a teacher asked me to answer a simple question. Even though I knew the answer, I froze. Then a couple of interesting things happened that I can genuinely say changed my life.

Through
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness I was given the opportunity to present a poster at the ISEC STEAM conference at Princeton University and again at the ISTE conference in Denver with nearly 19,000 delegates. I was passionate enough about the work, that it gave me confidence to speak to a whole room of strangers. After these challenging opportunities, speaking to a class of 30 friends was simple. In fact, later, I was able to present an entire project in my second language for an hour and… even asked a girl to prom at the end.. as if it were nothing.

Confidence and Public Speaking are skills I get to take away from
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness that will benefit me in ways that I cannot yet realize. Three years ago, I wouldn’t even be in this room, let alone on stage. I have always been interested in Law as a career, but my self confidence about speaking kept me away.
Current Generation-Engineering Brightness has removed that barrier and now I am in an undergraduate degree to study law.

Untold Thank You to SMART for supporting Engineering Brightness. Tracey and John were meeting with SMART after their great work on their booth. Not only did SMART already bring us to WE Day Alberta, but they also created a fantastic video for us. We were already appreciative and humbled by their support thus far.

It was a wonderful surprise to us when they quietly and nonchalantly announced that they were going to expand their support in a concrete way. I found it wonderfully refreshing that it was done without any kind of pomp or circumstance. They just wanted to do it because they believe in what we are trying to do. That means something special to us. SMART have already been wonderful to us. Now we hope to be able to connect some of their engineers, web designers, media specialists and graphic artists with our students.

Thanks to SMART, we are expecting our banner year as we break out onto the world stage as not only an organization trying to make a significant difference in the lives of individuals who are in light poverty, but also as a way to teaching and learning.

It has been just over a month ago since ISTE and my twin sons are still talking about ISTE Denver. One of the highlights was a generous visit from Anthony Salcito.

The students have participated in the SKYPE-Athon early in 2016 where they had presented the 3D printed wrist lights. Mr Salcito asked them to present him with one when it was closer to being finished. They were hoping ISTE might be a chance to present Mr Salcito with the latest version. I had to caution them that there were 19,500 people in attendance and he might still be busy after being on stage at the keynote, so he might not have a chance to come and see us.

Not long after, a very pleasant lady came to us and asked if we were indeed Engineering Brightness and would we be there for a while. She was going to try and bring Mr Salcito by for just 5 minutes.

Not only did Mr Salcito drop by, but he stayed and chatted for almost 30 minutes. Our watch light that we wanted to give to him was broken during the flight. He did take a Colorado lantern. Then he encouraged the twins to keep using their learning to change the world.

The fact that he took time out of his day to spend a few minutes with them was validating to their work and set them on a path to continue bigger and better not waiting for the start of the school year.

Engineering Brightness was published in IEEE Xplore for my teacher talk and for the student poster session.

Abstract: The Millennial Generation requires their efforts to have meaning today which is often juxtaposed against industrial education and the attached silos. Engineering Brightness uses philanthropy and engineering to provide motivation and a foundation for the Millennial Generation to learn in all subject areas.

Engineering Brightness students design and build lights for some of the 1.5 billion people who do not have access to clean reliable light. One of the many ramifications of little clean light is the inability to study after sunset. Many students have to choose between sitting in the dark or burning brush, garbage or kerosene which have health, environmental and safety concerns. STEM, specifically electrical engineering, is used to solve this real problem for real people. Primary, middle and high school students from Colorado, Canada and the UK, collaborate in the process to produce different prototypes of lights.

Students interact with community members and local businesses to learn how to assemble circuits, the functioning of electrical components, sewing, 3D printing, world issues, health, language arts and philanthropy. The project motivates students in a novel way. If a student does mediocre work, it is much more devastating than a poor mark because someone else’s life is negatively impacted. The work supersedes a grade and survives the trash can at the end of the semester. Students are proud to be leaving a legacy, participating even after they moved on to another school.

Engineering Brightness, Philanthropic Engineering’s (http://p-e.io) flagship project, aims to deliberately engineer brightness literally and figuratively including in: · the room of studying students all over the world who otherwise do not have access to clean light. · the minds of students who bring many skills and aptitudes to bear in the design and production of lights. · the hearts of students who use their learning to impact the lives of others.

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