Communications of the ACM
Colorado Schools Pay Students to Work With Local Tech Firms
A robot built to research endangered frogs in Perucaused a big splash at Skyline High School in Longmont, Colo.
Credit: Jeffrey Sylvester / Wired
Career preparation isn't just a buzzword but more like a guiding principle at Skyline High School. When the end-of-day bell sounds, some children transition from students to employees of the district, and earn $10 an hour for working on a variety of projects for local technology companies.
This year, 80 students (age 15 or older) in the St. Vrain Valley School District are being paid to work on 10 different teams. Their work is a version of what educators call project-based learning, which means gaining knowledge by solving problems rather than by studying textbooks. But in this Colorado district, it can also mean learning by working on real jobs.
"We want students to use their brains and learn what careers could look like," says Axel Reitzig, a program director at the district's Innovation Center.
From Wired
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