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Contact Information:
Paul Maopolski, Teacher
Phone (845) 295-4152 or email paul.maopolski@scboces.orgThe Career and Technical Education Center at Sullivan County BOCES recently unveiled a new program that combines a developed Pre-Tech program with a STEM-based project approach.
The Pre-Tech Program is a 9th & 10 grade credit-bearing, career exploration program wherein students gain a solid foundation of basic skills in multiple vocational areas while also managing a student-run business.
The Pre-Tech program mirrors the changes in the world and requires the student to take a different approach in responding to today’s problems, through the use of innovation, technology, and good old-fashioned “American Ingenuity”. This is accomplished without requiring the extensive use of “high-tech”, expensive equipment, only the use of innovation.
The STEM component offers a vast array of renewable energy practices, as well as alternative food production projects. Each project requires the student to engage in active problem-solving using higher-order thinking skills. Furthermore, the program challenges the student to build knowledge in viable energy and food production alternatives.
The use and advancement of these alternative technologies has been put to the side, while the United States enjoyed many years of fossil fuel based systems, making all others unnecessary. There has been a recent shift in this perception, however, due to the documented decline of these resources. A “retooling” of ideas is required.
