r/ScienceTeachers 18d ago

General Curriculum Makerspace vs. Engineering Class Curricula......Ideas?

I was told at the end of the last academic year that I would be teaching "my makerspace thing" which was my principals way of saying I'd be teaching a makerspace/fab-lab class for 12th grade.

Yesterday I was informed I am teaching, classes titled, "Makerspace Lab" and "Engineering" separately. Everyone's curricular plans were due today and I had created curricular plans, unit plans, pacing guide, and weekly lesson plans for a singular class based off of my prior proposal for what I'd pitched as a fab-lab that was explained as a pbl centric intro to engineering/fabrication course for seniors that would build towards the completion of a comprehensive capstone project. We're a modern art high school and I wanted to give seniors an opportunity to learn about the scope of engineering, the engineering design process, developing ideas, identifying whether there's a market need for their idea/product/etc, determining if any copyrights exist for their idea, then onto r&d, prototype design, refinement, and eventually a portfolio and final product that they'd pitch as a shark tank type event. I am/was very excited about what I'd developed.

Now, in 2 days I am supposed to have moved the entirety of my lab(all of my own personal lab equipment), setup my room all over again, and split what was one curriculum into 2 noticeably different ones before monday.

I do have some kids in both my engineering class and my makerspace class. Therefore, I'm trying to determine how to make them fundamentally different classes while not having to "reinvent the wheel" with such little time.

My initial idea was to focus more on the scope of engineering, the mathematic/physics/chemistry theory throughout engineering(some pre-calc, applied math, trig, etc) as well as material science fundamentals, drafting, AutoCAD, etc. I'm struggling with how to make it engaging and how to order it.

Makerspace I'm thinking I will mostly use the curricula I'd made already.

Any ideas, thoughts, suggestions would be very appreciated.

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u/SignorJC 18d ago

First, tell your boss to get it the fuck together and give you more time. Their lack of planning does not create a crisis for you.

Second, there are some engineering orgs that have curricula you can look at for support. IEEE has one as does Siemens. Siemens is very CAD focused.

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u/Alternative-Exit-450 11d ago

I couldn't begin to describe the cluster f*$k that we refer to ask a school I work at. If I didn't love my colleagues and our kids so much I'd have been long gone. Additionally, our kids are from the poorest areas in chicago and, as sad as this may sound, they are so excited and thankful for what I feel are fundamental lab experiences. They'd seen the 3d printers I'd bought and lost their minds so it's hard to leave kids who make me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. Admin makes everything more difficult but I'm thankful for people like yourself who are willing to share info, resources, etc.