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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Welcome to the IDRA Classnotes podcast, where we will explore innovative approaches that connect students to meaningful learning and real-world opportunities.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: I'm Dr. Stephanie Garcia with IDRA, and I am especially excited about our conversation because we are highlighting one of the most inspiring projects to emerge from our Educator Externship Program.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: IDRA's educator exertion program places teachers with local businesses and organizations during the summer. So this really gives them the opportunity to learn directly from industry professionals. And then teachers bring back those experiences to the classrooms, helping their students connect.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: academic concepts to rural careers, real challenges.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: and real opportunities in their communities. So today we're joined by 2 incredible educators who transformed one summer externship experience into a powerful project-based learning experience for their students.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Last summer, one of our guests spent 30 hours working alongside professionals at a local architecture firm.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: What followed was a collaborative effort between these teachers that challenged students to reimagine abandoned spaces in San Antonio and design solutions that could strengthen their communities. The project culminated in student presentations, community showcases, and even student pitches before the school district board members.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: It truly is one of the most impactful examples of an externship to classroom learning that we've seen so far. So I want to welcome Taylor and Angel. Thank you so much for joining us today during the summer. Could you go ahead and introduce yourselves quickly?
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Taylor Ray: Sure. Hi, my name is Taylor Ray. I am a seventh grade math teacher at the JSTEM Ac.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Hi, my name is Angel Watkins. I am the seventh grade Principals of Applied Engineering teacher at JSTEM Academy, and I'm the current DOW STEM Ambassador for Alamo STEM Ecosystem.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Awesome. So I just want to get started. And you know, Taylor talked to us last summer. You spent 30 h with a local architecture firm through our externship program. Can you tell us about that experience.
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Taylor Ray: Yeah, I was paired with LPA Design Studios, which is an architecture firm based in San Antonio.
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Taylor Ray: I spent 30 hours… essentially, I was almost like an employee for the week. I would show up in the morning, be there till…
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Taylor Ray: About 4 or 4.30, I think, in the afternoon. I would sit in on meetings, I would meet one-on-one with different, like, aspects of the design firm. They do, all sorts of design, like, front-end, and they specialize in building schools.
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Taylor Ray: And so a couple of projects we saw were some local schools in the area that they were working on.
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Taylor Ray: But it was a very, very enlightening and exciting experience for me. I enjoyed, kind of just being a fly on the wall during regular business hours. That was super exciting, and then also the one-on-one sit-downs with different
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Taylor Ray: You know, architect or interior design or construction and the different parts of.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Yeah, that what surprised you most about the work that they were doing?
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Taylor Ray: You know, it was crazy.
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Taylor Ray: Very cool to see something like, we saw some projects they were working on for a local school district, not our school district, but a different one, that I know people that work there. And so I'm like, oh, hey, I saw the plans for your new classroom.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Cool. Cool.
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Taylor Ray: And then being just in San Antonio, San Antonio, you know, a lot of times is a small town, big town, small town, but driving by and seeing the plans and the schools that I saw on paper, or digitally actually being built from the ground up, was really cool.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's awesome. At what point during that externship experience did you have that kind of aha moment and start thinking, hey, my students really need to experience this, like fill in the blank, whatever you wanted to take back. At what point did that happen for you?
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Taylor Ray: Well, Angel and I both work at, the same STEM school, that focuses on project based learning. And so we teach through the methodology of letting our students solve real world problems. And so I'm always kind of on the lookout for what's something, what's a problem within our community that the kids can solve? I found that even seventh graders.
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Taylor Ray: They get a bad rep for being middle schoolers, but at their heart, they want to make a difference, and they want to make change in their community.
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Taylor Ray: And so I can find a community based problem for them to solve.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay.
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Taylor Ray: you know, that that's where I try to guide them. And
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Taylor Ray: as a STEM school, a lot of times we talk about that we're preparing these kids for jobs that don't exist yet in the world of, you know, technology and manufacturing and AI and all these things that are… you see as kind of a STEM-related, but there's so much more, out there, and I remember
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Taylor Ray: as a math teacher, sitting in one of the meetings, and they were talking about, you know, their scale drawings that they were working on for, I believe it was a fire station that they were designing.
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Taylor Ray: And I thought, oh my gosh, like, we do skill in my classroom, right?
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Taylor Ray: And they do scale drawings in Angel's classroom. And these are things that they're actually doing at a middle school level that are then being used in this industry and in this workforce.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: BLA, That's awesome. That's incredible to to be able to see that connection.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And to see that, you know, y'all are really preparing them. And we'll get into that in a second, too, of all the things that students accomplish through their PBL. Angel, I'm curious, you know, to hear from you when Taylor brought this idea back to the campus, you know, what was your reaction about this PBL idea?
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Well, she basically brought the abandoned spaces idea and then she went on maternity leave. So it was up to the team to kind of like take that PBL and run for our spring PBL.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But I always like the architecture ones, because being the engineering teacher, like.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: the students love to build, but then architecture, then I can reach, like, all the students. Oh, yeah. Because, like, it just brings in, like, the different skills, not just, building or an idea of, like, like a Shark Tank idea that we've done in the past.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But it's more of, like, a community base, and
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: that's when we had the idea of actually bringing in the architects to come talk to them, which took a while. But…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: They had listened to me for like the whole semester about talking about like architecture and the engineering design process. And like, this is how we do a skilled drawing. This is how we do a computer model. And so like getting for me, getting them to do that, like as the big as the big picture at the end of the year project was was really exciting.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Dr. Christina.
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Taylor Ray: Should we share the project that the kids worked on? I don't think we've actually addressed that yet.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Please, let's do that. Let's talk about the project itself, you know, and let's go ahead and if you wanna share screen, Angel, and walk us through what were those major project components that students had to create?
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Taylor Ray: So we gave the students the task of we have a school in our district that was closed down two years ago now, and is currently sitting empty. And what can we use this space for? Because it's an empty building. And, you know, how can we repurpose this?
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Taylor Ray: And so we have here, one of our group. This actually was done by students. We pulled one of their projects to show today. So their problem that they we said we have an abandoned school. What are you gonna do with it? And then they were tasked with coming up with their own problem statement.
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Taylor Ray: So this group, Coronado Village Elementary, is abandoned and not being used. Judson doesn't know what to do with the school, and they possibly will not just put another school there. We have to choose a different purpose for this bustling school.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Mmhm.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Oh, okay.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And then here's the solution statement.
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Taylor Ray: Yeah, so this is the solution this group came up with.
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Taylor Ray: Our idea for our solution were mostly educational, like making a library, a museum, or even combining the two. In the end, we decided on making something fun and entertaining for everyone.
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Taylor Ray: But also educational, which is an escape room. Each room teaches a different thing and test the student's knowledge on each escape room as they escape. So how fun.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh my god.
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Taylor Ray: was, like, each of the, you know, it's an empty school, so, like, there's empty classrooms, and each classroom is, like, a history one, a science one, a math one.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And so here's part of the one of the three or a few of their deliverables, which is something that I have to turn in before the project can be done. So right here is their physical model that they built in our maker lab.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: that has, like, a solid base that we can reuse in the future, but they had to build the little rooms, and you can see that they have, like, like, a jungle-themed room, and again, they're all different escape rooms. Here's, like, a planetary-themed room, this one was, like, forest, and this one was…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But… I was like something like ocean, like ocean themed, like they have.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Hello.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: On this side, you can't see it, but they had like a little
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But that was this one. Right here is their scale drawing, and they have a key, so they had to do their drawing to the 1 4th scale, using an architectural ruler, so it makes it a little bit easier, because it does the math for them. And then they had to do a digital drawing, and then I use the floorplanner.com when we use that.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: They had to recreate the whole entire school, which is the… these spaces right here, but then they only designed the spaces that they were actually going to be using in their, in their idea.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, wow.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And oh, sorry, I think that's it.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay. No, it's fantastic. I was going to say, like, all of that looks and sounds just like what professional architects do on a daily basis, you know?
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Taylor Ray: Angel mentioned they use the architecture scale. And as I was at, the design firm, I saw one on one of the architect's desks, and I literally gasped, and I was like, can I take a picture of this, please?
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And I…
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Taylor Ray: You're using it.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's so great. Well, yeah, because, you know, these are that that's that career connected learning experience that we're talking about that the externship can really render for you and and see like, oh, what tools are they using? How are they collaborating together in that space? And
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And, you know, I think students benefit just so much when it's not just another classroom assignment, but they have something that's so meaningful like this.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: where you're truly walking them through the the knowledge and the skills. You're hitting those targets.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: but it's also allowing so much creativity, collaboration, problem solving. So I just love the entire project that you all came up with, and thank you so much for sharing that example. What a memorable experience for you all and for the students.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And speaking of, you know, thinking about one experience that I saw. Thank you for the invitation. That one of my favorite moments, too, was being invited to your school and seeing those architects like you mentioned, Angel, that came to your library and spoke to the students. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and that interaction between students and the architects?
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Yes. So, when the architects came in, we had… it was the very beginning of our PBL week, which stands for Project-Based Learning, and so we literally gave them the idea of the whole project, and then we
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: took them to the library, and that's where they got the presentation from the architects. So they hadn't even got to talk to each other about what they wanted to do. The architects came in, and they showed them, like, how they design, they showed them, like, school buildings, they showed them the fire stations that they've designed before.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And they're showing them digital and physical drawings. And then they ask them a lot of questions at the end. But what really surprised me is everything that they were talking about in the engineering design process as well is everything that I teach them in class. So it literally validated everything I've been teaching them for the last six months. And I was like — I was sitting there.
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Taylor Ray: to her, and she kept, like, elbowing me in the ribs, and being like, I.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We do this.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We're doing everything right. Look at us. I love it.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: No.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: I love it. I love it. No, that's it is extremely validating. You know, it really is. And it was just it was so sweet to see the architects, you know, it sounded like and tell me more like, how did the architects respond to the students ideas and questions? What was that like?
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Taylor Ray: They did such a good idea, such a good job. The architects were phenomenal.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay.
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Taylor Ray: At this point of the week, our students hadn't come up with any ideas yet. We literally were in our classroom, like, alright, so this week, your project is gonna be redesigning this school, now let's go to the library.
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Taylor Ray: So they had no time to kind of talk to their team. So a lot of their questions were based on like what a 13 year old would think an abandoned building is like run down, the ceiling's about to collapse. Like they were very concerned about the infrastructure.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Safety, yeah.
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Taylor Ray: building. And then we had to, like, kind of stop, like, guys, the building is okay. It's just empty. And so a lot of the questions started that way, very service level. And then as we started talking, they started kind of warming up. The students did. They were asking a little bit more in depth questions of, you know, well, if our client, what's this? And
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Taylor Ray: you know.
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Taylor Ray: if the… whoever's using the building, do we have to think about the community and the surrounding areas? And so they were starting to get more detailed as the questions went on.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, that's wonderful. It's so meaningful that you started the project off in that way, you know, to be able to consult with content experts in the field, industry experts in the field.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: For students to get that kind of exposure and really put on that hat as an architecture, like they just met some. It's personal, it's real to them. It's not something that's abstract. So I love that you.
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Taylor Ray: Many of our students attended this elementary school.
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Taylor Ray: When they were younger, and so for them to be like, oh, okay, I went to that school, that's my old kindergarten classroom, that's my old cafeter.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Yes.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Wow.
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Taylor Ray: We really try at JSTEM and the seventh grade team to design with empathy is a big.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Mmhm.
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Taylor Ray: component of our… our projects that we push on the kids. And so, knowing that the space was sentimental to quite a few of them was something that we also addressed.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Yeah, they handled it with so much care, right? It's in their it's in their backyard. It's in their neighborhood. It's very personal to them.
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Taylor Ray: Mmh.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And I love that you didn't just stop there. You took the project even further. You guys organized a community showcase where community members came to review student work.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: and give feedback and vote on the strongest designs. Can you tell us more about that event?
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Taylor Ray: Sure, this is an after-school event. It's the conclusion of our week.
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Taylor Ray: We invite parents and community members and anybody who had any involvement in the project to come and see what these kids have been working on all week, all their hard work. We have their elective teachers come, because they didn't go to electives all week. And so they'll come and see, you know, what have you been working on?
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Taylor Ray: The kids get really good at public speaking in our program.
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Taylor Ray: And so this is part of it. They are all like groups of about 4 to 5 students, and they'll have their project on the table, and they have a little rehearsal script that they like an elevator pitch, as parents and community members kind of roam around looking at different projects, and they'll explain it, and they'll speak to these adults and be able to very articulately explain.
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Taylor Ray: their process and what their final product was.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's great. Not all students get to experience that, you know, to be able to give students the opportunity to share their ideas with other people that they don't know and to get feedback. And I'm sure that was a really meaningful experience. How did they handle presenting to district leaders?
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: They were not.
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Taylor Ray: Smoothing.
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Taylor Ray: Yeah, they were nervous and excited. We invited a couple of district leaders to come. We picked, some of our top designs that were like, okay, you know, this could actually happen. And we invited district leaders, and they presented in the morning, and they got they were all dressed up, and they combed their hair a little extra that day and wore their nice clothes and.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Wow.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And they got to skip class, so they were excited about that. We also presented to, the same day they presented to the district leaders, it was parts of the school board members, it was the head of facilities, and it was our schools in universal cities.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: so just outside San Antonio and so they presented to one of the people on the Universal City City Council because.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Most of their ideas were community-based, and so they wanted to bring in the city to see, like, what their input was for making that building and that space not abandoned anymore.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: You you all worked so hard to bring everything together for your students. And you know, just
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: as we close up, you know, I'm thinking about that student impact, like, you know, looking back at this entire Qbl journey, starting from the externship experience to the board presentation. What impact do you believe this project had on students.
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Taylor Ray: You know, I mentioned before that we push a lot of design with empathy. And so I hope that our middle schoolers know that they can make a difference and that they can make change within their community, even though they're only 12, 13 years old.
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Taylor Ray: And that their voices are small, but they're powerful and they can design and they can build and they can do a lot of great things.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: In my class specifically, I'm also trying to teach that
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: A project isn't a project, and an ask from a teacher isn't just an ask from a teacher, it's a promotion. It's a promotion to…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: be, like, a contributing member to society, and when the kids actually see, like, hey, I can do something with this space that I knew since I was a little kid and played on the playground, and now it can be something greater.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: It really…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: brings them in.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's amazing. That's amazing. And I really think
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: it probably changed their ways that they're thinking about their future. Like, they've definitely built their confidence. You can hear about that, and you can hear about, too, you know.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Maybe I want to be an architect one day, or maybe I want to be involved in my community in this way or that way. And I just love that so much. You guys made a profound impact on your students. And in closing, what impact did this experience have on you as educators?
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Taylor Ray: I mean, I think that having the opportunity to do the externship and be as a teacher, you know, I spend all my days in the school. And so it's it's hard to be out in the community and be like, okay, what are the needs?
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Taylor Ray: of different industries, and what are they looking for? What do I as a teacher need to bring to my classroom? And say, hey guys, if you want to be an architect, if you want to be an interior designer, if you want to work in construction.
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Taylor Ray: These are the things you need to know.
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Taylor Ray: And be able to do. And I think that being able to spend the week at LPA and just kind of
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Taylor Ray: It's like, okay, so this is what it's actually like to work at our firm. I can then and I did, I sat, I had one girl, I have a girl who I know wants to be an architect, and she sat at my desk towards the end of school year, and I was like, look at all these things from last summer. And I opened up a scale drawing that they had gifted me and the notes that I take in the pictures. And I was like, this is an actual place in San Antonio, like you could go work at potentially.
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Taylor Ray: And she just thought it was so cool.
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Taylor Ray: And just being able to bring the knowledge that I got from the externship into my classroom is something so invaluable that I think that more teachers need to experience.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's awesome. That's incredible. And Angel, I'm excited for you because you start your externship tomorrow, so I cannot wait. Maybe we'll do a part two next summer and we'll see what comes out of that one.
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Taylor Ray: I'm sure something will.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: I already have ideas.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, good, good, good.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay. You know, I just, you know, before we close, I just want to kind of do a fast recap. That was incredible. There's so much that we got to hear today. You know, a teacher spent 30 hours learning from industry professionals in a local architecture firm. That experience sparked an idea. Two educators worked together to transform that idea into a meaningful project.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Students became architects, designers, problem solvers, communicators, and civic leaders. Industry professionals volunteered their time. Community members participated. This is exactly what career connected learning looks like. But unfortunately, programs like IDRA's Educator Externship Program are at risk because with recent federal funding losses, this has created a significant challenge for us.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: to sustain and expand these opportunities for educators and teachers. So without funding, fewer teachers would have access to paid externship experiences, and then fewer students will have these types of opportunities to engage with professionals and solve authentic community problems. So if anybody is out there that would be able to invest to help keep
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: You know, this type of externship program going to connect classrooms to careers, strengthen educators learning, and create transformative experiences for students. We invite you to help us continue to do this work. To learn more about supporting IDRA's externship program, visit IDRA.org or contact our team directly. And thank you again, Taylor and Angel, for sharing your story and spending some time out of your summer with us.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We really appreciate all the incredible work you're doing with your students, and thank you, listeners, for joining us. Until next time.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We'll talk to you later. Thank you so much.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Yeah, okay.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Welcome to the IDRA Classnotes podcast, where we will explore innovative approaches that connect students to meaningful learning and real-world opportunities.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: I'm Dr. Stephanie Garcia with IDRA, and I am especially excited about our conversation because we are highlighting one of the most inspiring projects to emerge from our Educator Externship Program.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: IDRA's educator exertion program places teachers with local businesses and organizations during the summer. So this really gives them the opportunity to learn directly from industry professionals. And then teachers bring back those experiences to the classrooms, helping their students connect.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: academic concepts to rural careers, real challenges.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: and real opportunities in their communities. So today we're joined by 2 incredible educators who transformed one summer externship experience into a powerful project-based learning experience for their students.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Last summer, one of our guests spent 30 hours working alongside professionals at a local architecture firm.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: What followed was a collaborative effort between these teachers that challenged students to reimagine abandoned spaces in San Antonio and design solutions that could strengthen their communities. The project culminated in student presentations, community showcases, and even student pitches before the school district board members.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: It truly is one of the most impactful examples of an externship to classroom learning that we've seen so far. So I want to welcome Taylor and Angel. Thank you so much for joining us today during the summer. Could you go ahead and introduce yourselves quickly?
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Taylor Ray: Sure. Hi, my name is Taylor Ray. I am a seventh grade math teacher at the JSTEM Ac.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Hi, my name is Angel Watkins. I am the seventh grade Principals of Applied Engineering teacher at JSTEM Academy, and I'm the current DOW STEM Ambassador for Alamo STEM Ecosystem.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Awesome. So I just want to get started. And you know, Taylor talked to us last summer. You spent 30 h with a local architecture firm through our externship program. Can you tell us about that experience.
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Taylor Ray: Yeah, I was paired with LPA Design Studios, which is an architecture firm based in San Antonio.
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Taylor Ray: I spent 30 hours… essentially, I was almost like an employee for the week. I would show up in the morning, be there till…
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Taylor Ray: About 4 or 4.30, I think, in the afternoon. I would sit in on meetings, I would meet one-on-one with different, like, aspects of the design firm. They do, all sorts of design, like, front-end, and they specialize in building schools.
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Taylor Ray: And so a couple of projects we saw were some local schools in the area that they were working on.
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Taylor Ray: But it was a very, very enlightening and exciting experience for me. I enjoyed, kind of just being a fly on the wall during regular business hours. That was super exciting, and then also the one-on-one sit-downs with different
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Taylor Ray: You know, architect or interior design or construction and the different parts of.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Yeah, that what surprised you most about the work that they were doing?
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Taylor Ray: You know, it was crazy.
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Taylor Ray: Very cool to see something like, we saw some projects they were working on for a local school district, not our school district, but a different one, that I know people that work there. And so I'm like, oh, hey, I saw the plans for your new classroom.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Cool. Cool.
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Taylor Ray: And then being just in San Antonio, San Antonio, you know, a lot of times is a small town, big town, small town, but driving by and seeing the plans and the schools that I saw on paper, or digitally actually being built from the ground up, was really cool.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's awesome. At what point during that externship experience did you have that kind of aha moment and start thinking, hey, my students really need to experience this, like fill in the blank, whatever you wanted to take back. At what point did that happen for you?
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Taylor Ray: Well, Angel and I both work at, the same STEM school, that focuses on project based learning. And so we teach through the methodology of letting our students solve real world problems. And so I'm always kind of on the lookout for what's something, what's a problem within our community that the kids can solve? I found that even seventh graders.
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Taylor Ray: They get a bad rep for being middle schoolers, but at their heart, they want to make a difference, and they want to make change in their community.
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Taylor Ray: And so I can find a community based problem for them to solve.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay.
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Taylor Ray: you know, that that's where I try to guide them. And
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Taylor Ray: as a STEM school, a lot of times we talk about that we're preparing these kids for jobs that don't exist yet in the world of, you know, technology and manufacturing and AI and all these things that are… you see as kind of a STEM-related, but there's so much more, out there, and I remember
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Taylor Ray: as a math teacher, sitting in one of the meetings, and they were talking about, you know, their scale drawings that they were working on for, I believe it was a fire station that they were designing.
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Taylor Ray: And I thought, oh my gosh, like, we do skill in my classroom, right?
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Taylor Ray: And they do scale drawings in Angel's classroom. And these are things that they're actually doing at a middle school level that are then being used in this industry and in this workforce.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: BLA, That's awesome. That's incredible to to be able to see that connection.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And to see that, you know, y'all are really preparing them. And we'll get into that in a second, too, of all the things that students accomplish through their PBL. Angel, I'm curious, you know, to hear from you when Taylor brought this idea back to the campus, you know, what was your reaction about this PBL idea?
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Well, she basically brought the abandoned spaces idea and then she went on maternity leave. So it was up to the team to kind of like take that PBL and run for our spring PBL.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But I always like the architecture ones, because being the engineering teacher, like.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: the students love to build, but then architecture, then I can reach, like, all the students. Oh, yeah. Because, like, it just brings in, like, the different skills, not just, building or an idea of, like, like a Shark Tank idea that we've done in the past.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But it's more of, like, a community base, and
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: that's when we had the idea of actually bringing in the architects to come talk to them, which took a while. But…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: They had listened to me for like the whole semester about talking about like architecture and the engineering design process. And like, this is how we do a skilled drawing. This is how we do a computer model. And so like getting for me, getting them to do that, like as the big as the big picture at the end of the year project was was really exciting.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Dr. Christina.
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Taylor Ray: Should we share the project that the kids worked on? I don't think we've actually addressed that yet.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Please, let's do that. Let's talk about the project itself, you know, and let's go ahead and if you wanna share screen, Angel, and walk us through what were those major project components that students had to create?
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Taylor Ray: So we gave the students the task of we have a school in our district that was closed down two years ago now, and is currently sitting empty. And what can we use this space for? Because it's an empty building. And, you know, how can we repurpose this?
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Taylor Ray: And so we have here, one of our group. This actually was done by students. We pulled one of their projects to show today. So their problem that they we said we have an abandoned school. What are you gonna do with it? And then they were tasked with coming up with their own problem statement.
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Taylor Ray: So this group, Coronado Village Elementary, is abandoned and not being used. Judson doesn't know what to do with the school, and they possibly will not just put another school there. We have to choose a different purpose for this bustling school.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Mmhm.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Oh, okay.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And then here's the solution statement.
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Taylor Ray: Yeah, so this is the solution this group came up with.
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Taylor Ray: Our idea for our solution were mostly educational, like making a library, a museum, or even combining the two. In the end, we decided on making something fun and entertaining for everyone.
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Taylor Ray: But also educational, which is an escape room. Each room teaches a different thing and test the student's knowledge on each escape room as they escape. So how fun.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh my god.
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Taylor Ray: was, like, each of the, you know, it's an empty school, so, like, there's empty classrooms, and each classroom is, like, a history one, a science one, a math one.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And so here's part of the one of the three or a few of their deliverables, which is something that I have to turn in before the project can be done. So right here is their physical model that they built in our maker lab.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: that has, like, a solid base that we can reuse in the future, but they had to build the little rooms, and you can see that they have, like, like, a jungle-themed room, and again, they're all different escape rooms. Here's, like, a planetary-themed room, this one was, like, forest, and this one was…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But… I was like something like ocean, like ocean themed, like they have.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Hello.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: On this side, you can't see it, but they had like a little
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: But that was this one. Right here is their scale drawing, and they have a key, so they had to do their drawing to the 1 4th scale, using an architectural ruler, so it makes it a little bit easier, because it does the math for them. And then they had to do a digital drawing, and then I use the floorplanner.com when we use that.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: They had to recreate the whole entire school, which is the… these spaces right here, but then they only designed the spaces that they were actually going to be using in their, in their idea.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, wow.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And oh, sorry, I think that's it.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay. No, it's fantastic. I was going to say, like, all of that looks and sounds just like what professional architects do on a daily basis, you know?
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Taylor Ray: Angel mentioned they use the architecture scale. And as I was at, the design firm, I saw one on one of the architect's desks, and I literally gasped, and I was like, can I take a picture of this, please?
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And I…
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Taylor Ray: You're using it.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's so great. Well, yeah, because, you know, these are that that's that career connected learning experience that we're talking about that the externship can really render for you and and see like, oh, what tools are they using? How are they collaborating together in that space? And
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And, you know, I think students benefit just so much when it's not just another classroom assignment, but they have something that's so meaningful like this.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: where you're truly walking them through the the knowledge and the skills. You're hitting those targets.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: but it's also allowing so much creativity, collaboration, problem solving. So I just love the entire project that you all came up with, and thank you so much for sharing that example. What a memorable experience for you all and for the students.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And speaking of, you know, thinking about one experience that I saw. Thank you for the invitation. That one of my favorite moments, too, was being invited to your school and seeing those architects like you mentioned, Angel, that came to your library and spoke to the students. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and that interaction between students and the architects?
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Yes. So, when the architects came in, we had… it was the very beginning of our PBL week, which stands for Project-Based Learning, and so we literally gave them the idea of the whole project, and then we
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: took them to the library, and that's where they got the presentation from the architects. So they hadn't even got to talk to each other about what they wanted to do. The architects came in, and they showed them, like, how they design, they showed them, like, school buildings, they showed them the fire stations that they've designed before.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And they're showing them digital and physical drawings. And then they ask them a lot of questions at the end. But what really surprised me is everything that they were talking about in the engineering design process as well is everything that I teach them in class. So it literally validated everything I've been teaching them for the last six months. And I was like — I was sitting there.
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Taylor Ray: to her, and she kept, like, elbowing me in the ribs, and being like, I.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We do this.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We're doing everything right. Look at us. I love it.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: No.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: I love it. I love it. No, that's it is extremely validating. You know, it really is. And it was just it was so sweet to see the architects, you know, it sounded like and tell me more like, how did the architects respond to the students ideas and questions? What was that like?
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Taylor Ray: They did such a good idea, such a good job. The architects were phenomenal.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay.
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Taylor Ray: At this point of the week, our students hadn't come up with any ideas yet. We literally were in our classroom, like, alright, so this week, your project is gonna be redesigning this school, now let's go to the library.
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Taylor Ray: So they had no time to kind of talk to their team. So a lot of their questions were based on like what a 13 year old would think an abandoned building is like run down, the ceiling's about to collapse. Like they were very concerned about the infrastructure.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Safety, yeah.
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Taylor Ray: building. And then we had to, like, kind of stop, like, guys, the building is okay. It's just empty. And so a lot of the questions started that way, very service level. And then as we started talking, they started kind of warming up. The students did. They were asking a little bit more in depth questions of, you know, well, if our client, what's this? And
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Taylor Ray: you know.
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Taylor Ray: if the… whoever's using the building, do we have to think about the community and the surrounding areas? And so they were starting to get more detailed as the questions went on.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, that's wonderful. It's so meaningful that you started the project off in that way, you know, to be able to consult with content experts in the field, industry experts in the field.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: For students to get that kind of exposure and really put on that hat as an architecture, like they just met some. It's personal, it's real to them. It's not something that's abstract. So I love that you.
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Taylor Ray: Many of our students attended this elementary school.
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Taylor Ray: When they were younger, and so for them to be like, oh, okay, I went to that school, that's my old kindergarten classroom, that's my old cafeter.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Yes.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Wow.
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Taylor Ray: We really try at JSTEM and the seventh grade team to design with empathy is a big.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Mmhm.
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Taylor Ray: component of our… our projects that we push on the kids. And so, knowing that the space was sentimental to quite a few of them was something that we also addressed.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Yeah, they handled it with so much care, right? It's in their it's in their backyard. It's in their neighborhood. It's very personal to them.
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Taylor Ray: Mmh.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: And I love that you didn't just stop there. You took the project even further. You guys organized a community showcase where community members came to review student work.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: and give feedback and vote on the strongest designs. Can you tell us more about that event?
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Taylor Ray: Sure, this is an after-school event. It's the conclusion of our week.
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Taylor Ray: We invite parents and community members and anybody who had any involvement in the project to come and see what these kids have been working on all week, all their hard work. We have their elective teachers come, because they didn't go to electives all week. And so they'll come and see, you know, what have you been working on?
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Taylor Ray: The kids get really good at public speaking in our program.
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Taylor Ray: And so this is part of it. They are all like groups of about 4 to 5 students, and they'll have their project on the table, and they have a little rehearsal script that they like an elevator pitch, as parents and community members kind of roam around looking at different projects, and they'll explain it, and they'll speak to these adults and be able to very articulately explain.
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Taylor Ray: their process and what their final product was.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's great. Not all students get to experience that, you know, to be able to give students the opportunity to share their ideas with other people that they don't know and to get feedback. And I'm sure that was a really meaningful experience. How did they handle presenting to district leaders?
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: They were not.
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Taylor Ray: Smoothing.
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Taylor Ray: Yeah, they were nervous and excited. We invited a couple of district leaders to come. We picked, some of our top designs that were like, okay, you know, this could actually happen. And we invited district leaders, and they presented in the morning, and they got they were all dressed up, and they combed their hair a little extra that day and wore their nice clothes and.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Wow.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: And they got to skip class, so they were excited about that. We also presented to, the same day they presented to the district leaders, it was parts of the school board members, it was the head of facilities, and it was our schools in universal cities.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: so just outside San Antonio and so they presented to one of the people on the Universal City City Council because.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Most of their ideas were community-based, and so they wanted to bring in the city to see, like, what their input was for making that building and that space not abandoned anymore.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: You you all worked so hard to bring everything together for your students. And you know, just
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: as we close up, you know, I'm thinking about that student impact, like, you know, looking back at this entire Qbl journey, starting from the externship experience to the board presentation. What impact do you believe this project had on students.
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Taylor Ray: You know, I mentioned before that we push a lot of design with empathy. And so I hope that our middle schoolers know that they can make a difference and that they can make change within their community, even though they're only 12, 13 years old.
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Taylor Ray: And that their voices are small, but they're powerful and they can design and they can build and they can do a lot of great things.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: In my class specifically, I'm also trying to teach that
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: A project isn't a project, and an ask from a teacher isn't just an ask from a teacher, it's a promotion. It's a promotion to…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: be, like, a contributing member to society, and when the kids actually see, like, hey, I can do something with this space that I knew since I was a little kid and played on the playground, and now it can be something greater.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: It really…
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: brings them in.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's amazing. That's amazing. And I really think
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: it probably changed their ways that they're thinking about their future. Like, they've definitely built their confidence. You can hear about that, and you can hear about, too, you know.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Maybe I want to be an architect one day, or maybe I want to be involved in my community in this way or that way. And I just love that so much. You guys made a profound impact on your students. And in closing, what impact did this experience have on you as educators?
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Taylor Ray: I mean, I think that having the opportunity to do the externship and be as a teacher, you know, I spend all my days in the school. And so it's it's hard to be out in the community and be like, okay, what are the needs?
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Taylor Ray: of different industries, and what are they looking for? What do I as a teacher need to bring to my classroom? And say, hey guys, if you want to be an architect, if you want to be an interior designer, if you want to work in construction.
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Taylor Ray: These are the things you need to know.
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Taylor Ray: And be able to do. And I think that being able to spend the week at LPA and just kind of
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Taylor Ray: It's like, okay, so this is what it's actually like to work at our firm. I can then and I did, I sat, I had one girl, I have a girl who I know wants to be an architect, and she sat at my desk towards the end of school year, and I was like, look at all these things from last summer. And I opened up a scale drawing that they had gifted me and the notes that I take in the pictures. And I was like, this is an actual place in San Antonio, like you could go work at potentially.
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Taylor Ray: And she just thought it was so cool.
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Taylor Ray: And just being able to bring the knowledge that I got from the externship into my classroom is something so invaluable that I think that more teachers need to experience.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: That's awesome. That's incredible. And Angel, I'm excited for you because you start your externship tomorrow, so I cannot wait. Maybe we'll do a part two next summer and we'll see what comes out of that one.
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Taylor Ray: I'm sure something will.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: I already have ideas.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Oh, good, good, good.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Okay. You know, I just, you know, before we close, I just want to kind of do a fast recap. That was incredible. There's so much that we got to hear today. You know, a teacher spent 30 hours learning from industry professionals in a local architecture firm. That experience sparked an idea. Two educators worked together to transform that idea into a meaningful project.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: Students became architects, designers, problem solvers, communicators, and civic leaders. Industry professionals volunteered their time. Community members participated. This is exactly what career connected learning looks like. But unfortunately, programs like IDRA's Educator Externship Program are at risk because with recent federal funding losses, this has created a significant challenge for us.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: to sustain and expand these opportunities for educators and teachers. So without funding, fewer teachers would have access to paid externship experiences, and then fewer students will have these types of opportunities to engage with professionals and solve authentic community problems. So if anybody is out there that would be able to invest to help keep
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: You know, this type of externship program going to connect classrooms to careers, strengthen educators learning, and create transformative experiences for students. We invite you to help us continue to do this work. To learn more about supporting IDRA's externship program, visit IDRA.org or contact our team directly. And thank you again, Taylor and Angel, for sharing your story and spending some time out of your summer with us.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We really appreciate all the incredible work you're doing with your students, and thank you, listeners, for joining us. Until next time.
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Dr. Stephanie Garcia - IDRA: We'll talk to you later. Thank you so much.
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Angel Watkins JSTEM Academy: Yeah, okay.
