FUSE FUTURES Day Celebrates Learning
Chicago middle school students explored virtual welding, robotics, and more at FUSE FUTURES, a celebration of science, technology, engineering, arts and math programs and career paths at Richard J. Daley College.
The seventh and eighth graders, who participate in Northwestern University’s FUSE program through grants from Boeing, used laser cutters, programmed robotic arms, and tried out Daley’s virtual welding machine as they rotated through stations curated and facilitated by Daley College and FUSE staff.
FUSE is a hands-on, choice-based learning environment that has been in Chicago area schools for more than a decade; it’s now also in 20 other states. Students in FUSE work on challenges that ‘level up’ like video games.
In the Boeing Design to Fly Challenge that FUSE co-designed with Boeing engineers, students designed and refined custom controllers for a flight simulator. During the FUSE FUTURES event, Boeing mentors demonstrated “flying” using some of the student-designed controllers.
"In FUSE kids learn all sorts of new things that they typically don’t encounter in their regular STEM courses—like using ideas from human centered design to build controllers for flight simulators or learning to 3D print designs of their own imagination—and it is really valuable to expose students to these new ways of contemporary creating,” said FUSE founder, Reed Stevens, professor of learning sciences at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy.
“Even more importantly, FUSE shows that giving kids choice and freedom based on their own interests can create a really lively classroom culture of peer learning and teaching and one in which students truly enjoy working and learning together.”
FUSE FUTURES recognized the unique partnership between Boeing, FUSE and Chicago Public Schools, which brings industry and academic researchers together to introduce STEM activities and ideas to Chicago’s students and educators.
Boeing, one of FUSE’s largest partners, has supported FUSE Studios in 93 locations within Chicago Public Schools and Gary, Indiana over the last seven years. The Boeing Design to Fly Challenge has proven popular with FUSE students, who have submitted more than 5,000 uploads to the FUSE website.
Daley College’s 52,000 square foot Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center prepares students for the more than 20,000 anticipated jobs in the engineering and advanced manufacturing fields coming to the region during the next decade.
“It’s the sort of educational environment that FUSE students should be enthusiastic and comfortable stepping into based on their exploratory experiences in FUSE,” Stevens said.
Participants came from Hefferan STEM Elementary School, Melody STEM Elementary School, Richardson Middle School, Turner-Drew Language Academy, Owen Scholastic Academy and West Park STEAM Academy.