9th Grade Students

CAREER AWARENESS

In the 9th grade, students engage in our work-based learning sequence by starting out with Career Awareness. This part of the process includes career/ college fairs, job site visits, workshops with Staten Island Tech's partners, and college trips. The goal is for students to be aware of the variety of career fields available to them based on their current interests. Upon completion of the 9th grade, students will have an idea of the professions they want to explore more in-depth during their remaining time in high school.

COURSES

All 9th grade students are required to take Intro to STEM Engineering & Robotics (1 semester) and Introduction to Technology & Careers (1 day per week). Students will then have the option of choosing between Intro to AV Engineering & TV Studio, or Computer Science & Engineering (1 semester). These introductory courses will expose students to various engineering disciplines and careers, and build basic skills in communication, critical thinking, collaboration, creative problem solving and design. Additionally, students will be exposed to specific technology applications that align with current trends in industry.

Intro to Technology & Careers Lab: 2 terms (1 day per week), Required

The goal of this course is to provide you with the technical ability, knowledge, and skills necessary to succeed in your future endeavors and prepare you for college and career readiness. We are committed to providing you with a unique experience while at Staten Island Tech, supporting each of you as you work towards building the 21st century skills needed to stand apart in this competitive market. In order to achieve this, the Introduction to Talknology and Career and Technical Education Lab course is focused on applying a high tech, low tech, and no tech exploration of:

Acquiring and accurately using protocols for effective communication in oral, written, and multimedia/digital formats
Examining multiple sources of career information from diverse formats to make informed career decisions and manage personal career plans
Analyzing existing and emerging computer technologies to research and explore the global impacts to industry and the comprehensive job market
Developing the key ‘soft skills’ needed for workplace success
Understanding how an individual's digital media presence is used by potential employers and post-secondary agencies to evaluate candidates.
Exploring work-based learning opportunities to demonstrate and expand upon knowledge and skills gained during classroom instruction.
Students will develop the skills needed to transition from the classroom to the workplace; these competencies include core academic and technical knowledge, employability skills, and job specific training.

The skills learned in this class can be applied broadly as you progress throughout both your educational and professional careers. This course will also encourage collaboration and teamwork with your peers and with your growing network, promoting the inclusion of divergent and creative perspectives. An emphasis will be placed throughout the entire course on the 21st century learning skills and relevance of a concept called Oracy. Oracy is a recently developed curriculum designed to provide students with the opportunity to learn effective communication techniques - verbal, non-verbal, and written - that can be applied as they progress throughout their educational and professional careers. The purpose of this new course will be to prepare students for social interactions, workplace readiness, and life. Using the tools developed by School 21 in England, and through the incorporation of Work Based Learning practices and the HOPE Skills, students are given the chance to develop the necessary soft skills and speaking skills necessary for success in any industry. Through use of the Oracy toolkit and talk protocols, students will “learn to talk” and “talk to learn.”

Intro to STEM Engineering & Robotics: 1 Term, Required

Introduction to STEM - Engineering and Robotics (STEM) is a mandatory half-year freshman level course that introduces various applications of the math and science concepts encountered in secondary education. The major focus is to expose students to various engineering fields, the design process, research and analysis, teamwork, communication methods, engineering standards, and technical documentation. Students will develop skills and understanding of course concepts through activity, project, and problem-based (APPB) learning. Used in combination with a teaming approach, APPB-learning challenges students to continually hone their interpersonal skills, creative abilities, practical execution, and understanding of the design process. It also allows students to develop strategies to enable and direct their own learning, which is the ultimate goal of education.

Beginning with an overview of the ABET approved engineering disciplines, students will learn and apply the design process through basic problems and applications of Mechanical, Materials, Civil/Architectural, and Computer/Electrical Engineering. In addition to basic building and programming using the Tetrix robotics and Arduino platforms, students can expect to encounter structural member properties, bridge/tower/cantilever prototyping and testing, computer aided drafting, 3D modeling, technical documentation, and DIY design prototyping, spanning the core engineering disciplines. At various points in the course, students will be required to manage multiple unrelated projects at once, requiring the critical development of efficient group dynamics and proper execution of time management.

Intro to Audio/Video Engineering & TV Studio: 1 Term (Option 1)

Intro to Audio/Video Engineering & TV Studio enables students to learn the technical engineering aspects of operating the video and audio hardware and software used in both television studios and mobile-based multimedia productions within a multi-million dollar HD TV studio. Students will have an in-depth understanding of camera functionality, light-to-video conversion, microphone technologies, and video editing using Adobe Premiere. This is achieved through a process of developing skills through individual and group-based activities and practical assessments, along with learning the skills and procedures necessary to operate mobile and studio based TV and recording equipment. The skills learned in this course prepare students for future study and careers in A/V engineering, television production, and filmmaking. However, these skills are also transferrable to practical applications in any courses/careers students will encounter, as our society continues to rely less on the printed word and more on a variety of audio-video media as our means of communication in the 21st century.

Computer Science & Engineering: 1 Term (Option 2)

Freshman will have the option to take the fundamentals of computer science through an introduction to programming in Python. This course provides an introduction to programming and the Python language. Students are introduced to core programming concepts like data structures, conditionals, loops, variables, and functions. This course includes an overview of the various tools available for writing and running Python and gets students coding quickly. It also provides hands-on coding exercises using commonly used data structures, writing custom functions, and reading and writing to files. This course will also introduce topics in web development using HTML, CSS and Flask.