Five students waited in the hallway of Columbus Middle School, and though Deaorian Neal stood a few inches shorter than his four peers, he stood confidently with big dreams and a determination to change the world.
“I just love to build and create new things, and I want to be an inventor, not an innovator,” Neal said. “I want to be the only person to create something new that can help the world in the future.”
Once back in the classroom, a class of roughly 20 sixth-grade students at CMS listened with quiet attention to their We Build It Better teacher Tameko Brooks.
This is the first year the WBIB class has been offered at CMS, and it is the pilot program for WBIB Mississippi — a program from Flight Works Alabama that focuses on aviation.
Brooks said while the class can be taught in a semester, she is using the full year to teach two classes of sixth-graders. Students will receive many hands-on opportunities to learn, and they will participate in a workplace-like classroom with meetings and different duties assigned in breakout groups throughout the course.
“The whole course is designed with 21st century workplace concepts, so the program tries to get the students started with the skills, knowledge and abilities to go out into the workforce,” Brooks said. “We start the morning out with a meeting because we know most jobs start out with the morning meeting. Our meetings can be about the objective for the day, key vocabulary terms and things of that nature.”
As the students close out unit one about inventions and innovations, the students will gather in groups to create an infographic on what they learned then present it to the class. During unit one, they will build a model of a Wright Brothers airplane.
There are seven different units the class will learn from August to May, and the ultimate goal is to allow students to come up with their own inventions.
After learning about the assembly line and 3D printing, students will take a virtual tour of the Airbus A320 final assembly line and eventually use their knowledge to build a model A320 using bolts, screws and pop rivets. They will also learn Morse Code and about the history of flight technology.
For the final unit, students will take what they learned to problem solve and either invent something new or innovate something to make it better.
The WBIB website says, “the … program begins with the importance of precision and accuracy, progresses to design and 3D printing, hand and power tools, electricity and fiber optics, programming and coding, business concepts, marketing and leadership principles.”
Brooks said living in Columbus with the Air Force base and aviation industries such as Airbus is helpful to hone in on the emphasis the program has in aviation.
She said former Columbus Municipal School District Superintendent Cherie Labat got the district involved in the program, and Brooks went to Mobile, Alabama, this summer to learn about the curriculum and how to teach it.
One of Brooks’ students, Christian Jordan, said he is excited to take what he learns in the class and see firsthand some airplanes in action just by living in Columbus. He said he hopes what he learns will help him be a pilot one day.
“It’s cool because one day I might fly a plane — you never know,” Jordan said. “I’m excited to learn about aviation and how that works and how things are built to make life better.”
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