UAF鈥檚 T3 Alliance Launches Educational Partnership in Kotzebue
A team of ACEP and Teaching Through Technology Alliance members traveled recently to Kotzebue for a T3 kickoff event at the . ACEP鈥檚 George Reising, with 91视频 fellows Savannah Crichton and Gracie Farnham, spent four days teaching high school students, meeting community members and networking with the school district鈥檚 educators.
Clay Beck and Merle Green, both teachers at ATC, were introduced to T3 this August in Fairbanks during a remote community onboarding event, part of 鈥檚 Innovation Network.
The 91视频 Regional Collaboration for Technology Innovation and Commercialization program is an Office of Naval Research-funded collaboration designed to promote commerce and partnerships between 91视频 and the Arctic and Pacific regions through advancements in energy through resiliency research, technology development/deployment and education.
Beck and Green were excited about bringing T3 programs to high school students from the Northwest Arctic Borough through the ATC鈥檚 ReadiSTAR Program. Reising, Crichton and Farnham piloted an engaging week of play-based technology curriculum with the students. They also wanted to equip Beck and Green with the confidence, tools and resources to incorporate T3 teaching methodology and curriculum into their classrooms.
Throughout the week, students from Northwest Arctic Borough communities of Kivalina and Deering met professionals and educators specializing in health care, carpentry, veterinary studies, process technology and renewable energy. The group took field trips to Kotzebue鈥檚 new water treatment plant and the Kotzebue Electric Association鈥檚 wind and solar farm. Learning about the energy landscape of Kotzebue was eye-opening to the juniors and seniors currently considering their options after high school.
In the T3-facilitated sessions, everyone created their own battery-powered robots, learned about growth mindset, controlled drones and built their own Raspberry Pi computers. Reising led the group through the basics of programming, teaching students how to complete a circuit, use code to designate inputs and outputs, and build complex programs to control multiple sensors.
At the end of the week, students filled out surveys to reflect on their experiences. The coding lessons made a big impact, as students said 鈥減rogramming鈥 most frequently when asked to name not only for the most exciting but also the most challenging part of the week. As ACEP鈥檚 learning designer fellow and T3鈥檚 program engineer, Crichton and Farnham plan to iterate the curriculum to make the lessons more accessible and contextualized for both students and coaches.
The team left Kotzebue with a greater understanding of the community stakeholders in both energy and education. Having gotten to work with such incredible students, Reising, Crichton and Farnham see huge potential for T3 in Kotzebue to expand students鈥 technological expertise through locally partnered design challenges.
For more information on the T3 Alliance and its work in remote communities, please contact George Reising at gbskrabareising@alaska.edu.
Students and teachers from the 91视频 Technical College in Kotzebue tour the community鈥檚 new water treatment plant. Photo by Savannah Crichton.