Request for Information: A Fab Lab Prospectus Fab Lab Jackson County- Where Innovation Meets Imagination To help you (and us) evaluate your readiness for and engagement in this opportunity, please submit the following information to The Fab Foundation regarding your thoughts, plans and strategies for the implementation and long-term sustainability of a Fab Lab in your organization. Your organization name, address, contact info and type (corp, non-profit, school, etc.) Jackson County School District Vancleave High School 12424 Highway 57 Vancleave, MS 39565 Dr. Barry Amacker Superintendent bamacker@jcsd.k12.ms.us Dr. Susan Benson Assistant Superintendent sbenson@jcsd.k12.ms.us Dr. Jerry J Morgan CTE Director jjmorgan@jcsd.k12.ms.us Mr. David Besancon Technology Director dbesancon@jcsd.k12.ms.us Dr. John J Mundy Principal, Vancleave High School jmundy@jcsd.k12.ms.us At the time of preparing this document other administrators and teachers were invited to be part of this endeavor. Describe your organization and its mission. Jackson County School District is the 7 th largest district in the state of Mississippi and the 2 nd in the six southern coastal counties with 9,411 students. The district has three separate attendance centers. The unique characteristics of each attendance center makes each community a great place to raise a family. The district serves the communities of Vancleave, Latimer, St. Martin, Hurley, Wade, and Big Point. Each supporting a high school, middle school, upper elementary and lower elementary schools. Jackson County School District is centered in Vancleave, Mississippi. It has 9,411 students attending 13 schools in grades PK-12. The district has an annual budget of $72,259,000, spending an average of $7,722 per student. Jackson County has a free and reduced rate of 59.2% district wide. The following chart provides the district representation of gender and race. Group Name Group Number Group Percent (%) Female 4431 47.75% Male 4848 52.25% Asian 348 <5% Black 1014 10.93% Hispanic 244 <5% Native American 26 <5% White 7597 81.87% Multi Racial 37 <5% Pacific Islander 13 <5%
Describe your mission and goals for a Fab Lab and intended impact. The mission of Jackson County School District is to Raise the Standard in our quest to educate all students to their fullest potential academically, socially, artistically, and physically. In doing so, Jackson County School District will strive to provide a safe, nurturing environment conducive to a quality education. The Jackson County School District strives to provide a safe, nurturing environment conducive to quality education wherein all students have the opportunity to obtain the essential skills necessary to achieve the goals of their choice and to become responsible, productive citizens. The mission for Jackson County School District is to create Fab Lab Jackson County to: (a) to provide K-12 students, with the guidance of their teachers, the opportunity to become technologist and engineers, using mathematics and science as tools to design and create physical objects; (b) to provide the local community access to the technological tools in the Fab Lab to promote entrepreneurship, small business development, workforce development experience and involvement with advanced technologies; and (c) to provide the local community and surrounding school districts with opportunities to use Fab Lab tools to create products and spike interests in STEM equipment and possibilities. Specifically, Fab Lab Jackson County would establish goals to: Provide science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education experiences for K-12 students through direct involvement in Fab Lab projects from design to finished product, focusing on two kinds of projects: Provide student access to mathematics and science content through physical models, e.g., the three-dimensional cube model for (a + b) 3 ; a moveable number line to represent equivalent fractions; electric circuit boards. The availability of the lab will help to implement. Provide students the opportunity to create objects of personal interest to promote academic curiosity, (e.g., face mask models, personalized small boxes, and cultural icons). Actively local community residents and provide Fab Lab engagement opportunities to acquaint local residents with Fab Lab tools and a pathway to design and create products, (e.g., through STEM Community Nights or Saturday events). Jackson County School district is situated appropriately to offer equal access to the entire county proprietorships. Provide and connect other school district programs to the opportunities provided by a fully functioning Fab Lab setting. Fab Lab Jackson County will provide a location that is easily accessible to multiple school programs and other surrounding school districts. Teachers, supported by STEM coaches (i.e., former classroom teachers who have been released full time to provide coaching support for teachers), will be directly involved in the student and community activities. The intended impact for these activities is to actively engage K-12 students and community residents in understanding Fab Lab technologies in order to design and create products, ultimately raising student achievement, opening a wide range of career paths for our students, improving teacher knowledge, and involving the entire community in STEM education and entrepreneurship. The Fab Lab Jackson County will:
Provide balanced access and use among education, community, and business/industry groups; Sustain ongoing educational opportunities and programs for K-12 (specifically K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12) as well as the transition to adult programs, employment, and higher education persuits; Implement adult programs connected to post-secondary pathways, (e.g., college and apprenticeships); Promote entrepreneurship, imagination, and an environment for creating new ideas; Create an online presence so that the ideas and innovations designed in the Fab Lab can have a broad impact; Maintain easy processes for accessing the Fab Lab; Leverage principles of Universal Design, including multilingual support; Build in opportunities for students and community members to mentor, teach, and tutor each other; Support Fab Lab users to invest in the lab; Provide professional development and coaching as the foundation for integrating the Fab Lab into ongoing lesson design; and Communicate and coordinate among K-12, higher education, community, and business/industry. The development of Fab Lab Jackson County will create completely new and unprecedented opportunities for our students, teachers, and broader community. The Jackson County School District, is honored to be considered as a Fab Lab site. Fab Lab Jackson County will provide hands-on learning to spark interest in STEM and prepare individuals for the nearly 1 million U.S. jobs that will require basic STEM literacy over the next five years. Fab Lab Jackson County will become a new way for students to integrate learning in math, science and computer classes and inspire residents who want to use lab equipment to develop their own businesses. Describe the community (or communities) you will serve with your Fab Lab. Fab Lab Jackson County will serve: K-12 JCSD students, K-12 JCSD teachers, Local community residents in the Jackson County community surrounding the Vancleave community, the location of Fab Lab Jackson County, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, the local community college, Mississippi State University - Engineer Extension Center Gautier Campus, Local businesses and nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. Fab Lab Jackson County will be accessible via a major interstate by 14 local school districts, supporting, 121 schools with approximately 71,434 students and teachers. Implementation plan: What do you need to take into consideration to put a Fab Lab in place in your organization, both physically and programmatically? How long will it take before you are ready to receive and implement a Fab Lab?
Fab Lab Jackson County has a physical location that is centrally located in Jackson County in the Vancleave Community. An administrative leadership team to guide a smooth implementation is needed. Plans for the refurbishing and redesigning of the space for Fab Lab Jackson County at Vancleave High School and or a location in proximity to Vancleave High School are under consideration and leadership to guide the project is in place. Our vision is to create a lab that is accessible to include individuals with physical limitations. Based on these two elements (physical location and leadership), we believe we will be ready to receive and implement Fab Lab Jackson County in initial phases by August 2017 with the possibility of a working lab in January of 2018. Funding/support strategy: Please describe your funding/support strategy over a 5 year period (gross %s and types of funding/support). Given that much of the first 3 years of funding will come from the Fab Foundation, how will you supplement this funding, and continue supporting the Fab Lab after this grant ends? The initial funding will be supplemented by Chevron as needed. Chevron has already funded Project Lead the Way Program in Jackson County through a $45,000 grant from 2014 through 2017. Chevron funding will provide an essential bridge to local district funding. The school board and district administration have demonstrated solid commitment to continuing full support for the Fab Lab Jackson County and will provide insurance to cover liability of individuals and damages due to theft, fire, or weather as required in the MOU. The Fab Foundation s estimate of $150,000 to $180,000 annual funds needed to continue the operations of the Fab Lab will be secured through general district and state funds as well as federal funding intended for professional development and improving student achievement (e.g., Titles I and II). Gross percentages by year of implementation are projected in the following: Year 1: 95% Fab Foundation, 5% Chevron Year 2: 95% Fab Foundation, 5% Chevron Year 3: 95% Fab Foundation, 5% Chevron Year 4: 50% Chevron, 50% district Year 5: 100% district (with possible portions of this percentage replaced by foundation and corporate grants). Please note that the district commitment is to fully fund the ongoing operation of the Fab Lab Jackson County after Year 3 even in the event of no additional foundation or corporate funding. Chevron has also committed to assist us in building the necessary infrastructure in the initial years to keep the funding community engaged. In addition, other potential education partners, sustainability grants, and public donations/foundations will be utilized to sustain Fab Lab Jackson County. Local stakeholders Please list for us your potential stakeholders/partners for supplemental funds as well as in-kind contributions (human resources, space, equipment, materials, etc.) Our primary local stakeholder for supplemental funds is Chevron, which has already provided grants in STEM education, which will be used to supplement the implementation of the Fab Lab. Specifically, funds can be reallocated in order to prepare the physical space. Additionally, Chevron provides funding for ongoing professional development, and these funds can be repurposed to provide for the professional development required for teachers and STEM coaches to engage in Fab Lab activities. Also, we intend to seek funding from other foundations that have funded successful district projects in the past.
Steering/Advisory Committee: Who will be the ongoing education and community stewards and guides for this resource? The Steering/Advisory Committee will consist of the Fab Lab manager, the director of curriculum, director of the Jackson County Technology Center, director of technology, Vancleave High School Principal, St. Martin Engineering/Robotics instructor, East Central administrator, WINGS/Gifted Teachers, Project Lead the Way Teachers (PLTW) teachers, representative mathematics, science, lead teachers (who have attended professional development and have expressed an interest in participating in Fab Lab activities), high school and middle school students, community organizers, Chevron representatives, district and site administrators, parent representatives, local business and community representatives, local nonprofit representatives, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College representative, Regional Occupational Program representatives, other education partners (e.g., other districts and/or universities), and other potential funders (Bacot- McCarty Foundation). Please describe a few sample programs that you envision the Fab Lab offering (a few basic ideas, not deeply detailed) Jackson County is implementing Project Lead the Way Programs (PLTW), which includes Engineering, at all three campuses and Biomedical and Computer Science at a single site. Our vision for the lab will allow students, teachers and community members to experience STEM in a state of the art facility that offers high tech equipment to prepare students and community for workforce development while capturing the young for imagination to meet innovation. We envision our Fab Lab Jackson County K-12 education program through a four-phase process. (1) Professional Development: Integrated mathematics, science, engineering, and technology professional development will be provided to teacher participants and their coaches, including phases of Fab Lab production. (2) Classroom Preparation: Mathematics, science, and STEM coaches will work with participating teachers to develop classroom activities that prepare students to design and produce models of mathematics and science concepts in the Fab Lab. (3) Fab Lab Production: Students will produce the objects with guidance from their teachers and coaches. (4) Follow-up Classroom Instruction: STEM coaches and teachers will use the objects for enhancing and following up instruction in the classroom. Fab Lab Jackson County will support workforce development in training and familiarizing candidates with the latest in digital fabrication. It will focus on workers who seek training or need re-training in new technical and engineering skill sets, Entrepreneurs who want to prototype business ideas and products, and members of the public who want access to high tech tools for prototyping personal projects or for lifelong learning goals. Fab Lab Jackson County consists of a suite of digital fabrication and rapid prototyping machines, including a large CNC Router (the ShopBot), a 3D desktop mill and scanner, a vinyl cutter, a laser cutter, an electronics work bench, a 3D printer and the accompanying computers and software for design, programming and machine communications. This equipment allows students, workforce and entrepreneurs to use computer-aided design to make almost anything they can imagine. Rapid Prototyping Technologies are beneficial
for academic and entrepreneurial engagement. Such technology to be used to show the feasibility of a new product as well as the issues with products prior to large scale production. This Fab Lab will link with other labs across the world to share the same foundation of machines and processes and are linked through video conferencing and online tools without leaving their local community, while exposing them to the digital world at their fingertips. Please describe the biggest challenges you foresee with the implementation of a fab lab in your organization. Two paramount challenges for our organization regarding the implementation of a Fab Lab are personnel and marketing. As a large, suburban school district, we must be vigilant in maintaining our strategic focus on a model for STEM education that includes a Fab Lab as a central component. As school districts are subject to a constant stream of federal, state, and local initiatives, our challenge will be to maintain our focus on the Fab Lab implementation. In order to effectively implement a Fab Lab, we will need to recruit and maintain high quality staff to implement the Fab Lab programs. Additionally, we will need to build on our successful coaching and professional development model in mathematics and science to provide learning opportunities and career enhancement for our teaching and administrative staff. For our Fab Lab to be successful, we will need to maintain our strategic and budgetary focus on providing support to our professional staff to help them gain teaching and learning tools necessary to implement STEM education with a Fab Lab as a central component. Marketing Fab Lab Jackson County will be the second issue. We have three different attendance centers and we must that this is not just a Vancleave lab express to all. This lab is for everyone We are hoping that with having steering committee members from all over the school district we will have district-wide buy-in from all three communities. Evaluation: How do you know (and we know) that you are succeeding in reaching your Fab goals? How many of your beneficiaries do you plan to reach in what time frame? Other parameters for success? For our Fab Lab evaluation, we propose to use a modified version of the metrics developed by Chevron and used in a variety of ongoing Chevron grants in our district. (See Modified Chevron Target Metrics at the end of this proposal). In Year 1 of the Fab Lab implementation, we plan on piloting activities following the four-phase process outlined in at least one classroom for each grade span, K-2, 3-6, 7-8, and high school, with a focus on schools in the local community surrounding the the Fab Lab. In Year 2, we plan on implementing activities in these same grade spans for at least three classrooms in each of the named grade spans. By Year 3, we will have an ideal schedule of classroom visits to the Fab Lab, maximizing the number of classrooms served per school year, including summer and after school programs (e.g., five classrooms in each grade span of K-2 and 3-6, and eight classrooms in each grade span of 7-8 and high school, for a total of 26 classrooms, with ongoing afterschool programs for middle and high school students, and a four-week summer middle/high school program). Other parameters for success include evidence of improvement in teacher content knowledge and student achievement, based on local assessment measures and state assessment results. Additionally, community satisfaction surveys will identify the level of successful involvement of the surrounding community in the Fab Lab operations, including impact on
local businesses in utilizing the Fab Lab. We will reach out to local businesses such as Ingalls Shipbuilding, Mississippi Power, Singing River Hospital System, and Gulf LNG. These local businesses can utilize the Fab Lab to for rapid prototyping as part of their training programs as well as concept proofing, and they can incorporate the Fab Lab to enhance their training modules. Please provide Annual Reports or Financial Statements for the last 3 years, including funding sources. Please see attached documents Please describe a few sample programs that you envision the Fab Lab offering (a few basic ideas, not deeply detailed) We envision our Fab Lab K-12 education program through a four-phase process. (1) Professional Development: Integrated mathematics, science, engineering, and technology professional development will be provided to teacher participants and their coaches, including phases of Fab Lab production. (2) Classroom Preparation: Mathematics, science, and STEM coaches will work with participating teachers to develop classroom activities that prepare students to design and produce models of mathematics and science concepts in the Fab Lab. (3) Fab Lab Production: Students will produce innovative and useful objects with guidance from teachers and coaches. (4) Follow-up Classroom Instruction: STEM coaches and teachers will use objects for enhancing and following up instruction in the classroom. For example, building on the content focus of our mathematics initiatives, students might learn to fabricate models of a grade level mathematics concept that can be used to support ongoing learning in the subject area. In Algebra, teachers, coaches, and students would learn about models for polynomials and the model for (a + b) 3, and then design and produce the physical model. In grade 3, students begin to learn about fractions on a number line, and equivalent fractions. Students could fabricate a movable number line model in the Fab Lab that would provide a vehicle for their mathematics learning about fractions. Teachers and students would learn how to design these models using the digital tools in the Fab Lab, and then actually produce these models. The prototype pictures below show what the polynomial cube model and movable number line model might look like: ( a + b) 3 b" Our Prototype a" a" b" Philip Gonsalves
halves thirds fourths fifths sixths eighths sixteenths Exampleofhowtousetomodel: 1 2 = 2 4 = 3 6 = 8 16 Modified Chevron Target Metrics Note: This data will be reviewed and revised, as appropriate, with input from Fab Lab Jackson County Steering/Advisory Committee, at its first meeting. General Metrics Year 1 Year 3 # of direct project beneficiaries in total 1 200 1000 % female 50% 50% # of indirect project beneficiaries 2 1000 5000 # of government institutions or nonprofit organizations with Copyright 2013 Philip Gonsalves. All Rights Reserved. enhanced capacity as a result of the project (please list in 5 15 evaluation report) 3 # of positive media mentions for the project 3 10 Will this project have a significant public event? If so, how many people will attend the event(s)? 200 1000 Amount of cash funds (in US$) leveraged through partnership 4 $20,000 $60,000 Amount of in-kind contribution leveraged through partnership 4 0 0 STEM Education Metrics The movable number line model includes plastic fraction bar pieces (alternating colors) with sliders made of firm wire or wood, with a blue sliding ball with red plastic arrows attached. Year 1 Year 3 # of additional resources made available and details of what they were Fab Lab Jackson County lesson activities posted online 4 30 # students participating in supported project 240 1000 # of teachers trained 40 200 # of hours of teacher training 120 1500 # of parents/community members engaged 60 250 % of project serving students from low-income families 60% 60%
# of supported students interested in pursuing further STEM education, certification or career % change in supported student performance in national standard tests in STEM subjects 50% 50% +10% +10% Career Training Metrics Year 1 Year 3 # of individuals starting workforce development/vocational training 5 20 # of individuals completing workforce development/vocational training 5 20 # of hours of workforce development and vocational training provided 20 100 # of teachers or trainers participating in professional development or train-the-trainer programs 5 5 20 # of trainees getting a job as a result of receiving training 5 20 # of trainees earning higher incomes as a result of the program 5 20 # of individuals certified or accredited in a skilled trade 2 6 Micro and Small Business Support Metrics Year 1 Year 3 # of local businesses supported 5 15 # of local business owners and employees who started training 5 15 # of local business owners and employees who completed 5 15 training # of local businesses reporting the ability to generate higher revenues after completing the Fab Lab project 5 15 # of total employees in supported local businesses 6 20 100 # of additional jobs created as a result of the Fab Lab 2 10 Definitions No Metric 1 # of direct project beneficiaries 2 # of indirect project beneficiaries 3 # of government institutions or nonprofits with enhanced capacity 4 Amount of cash funds (in US$)/ in-kind contribution leveraged Definition The number of project beneficiaries is the # of people that are directly impacted by the project. Indirect beneficiaries are those who benefit due to the positive impact on the direct beneficiaries. (Example: The number of students in the class of the teacher who was trained as a result of the project.) Only count individuals directly impacted by the direct beneficiary. Number of external groups that are more effective as a result of training provided through a project. Leveraged funds are all funds that were contributed as a result of this project. The additional funding must have come as a direct result of the project, not a general contribution.
through partnership 5 # of teachers or trainers participating in professional development or trainthe-trainer programs 6 # of total employees in supported local businesses In-kind contributions are any non-cash goods or services provided to the partner to support the project. Describe each good or service provided and indicate their value, if known. Estimate if exact value is not known. Number of trainers participating in workshops or programs that are designed to make them effective instructors in their skill area. (Example: Welding workshops, university-level engineering programs, truck driving certification programs, agricultural training, etc.) Total number of individuals that are working for the businesses that are participating and benefiting from this project. (For instance, if the project benefits 2 businesses 1 with 3 employees and the other with 5 employees then the number of employees in the supported business would be 8.)