St. Vrain Valley Innovation Center Provides Students With Real-World Knowledge
For the students at St Vrain Valley School District, learning will never be boring again. For a long time, students have accused schools of force-feeding them with knowledge that they were never going to use. However, with the new innovation center at the institution, learning has become a fun-filled activity.
The innovation center has a number of advanced classrooms where students are able to get hands-on in field such as robotics, virtual reality, information technology, manufacturing, biomedical engineering as well as entrepreneurship. Far from the stereotypical classroom set up, the new learning initiatives through the innovation center will seek to give the students some freedom to play around with the various technologies. After the completion of these classes, students are able to receive professional certificates and college credit.
Even better, the innovation center also hires the students to work on contracts with many renowned firms such as Apple, Denver Zoo and IBM. For instance, a team of high-schoolers led by Zach Gillett built an aquatic robot that can measure the depth of reservoirs and lakes in Colorado. The concept behind this was to echolocation technology.
Another team came up with a robot to measure white sharks. Students have hailed the new innovation center, as they can finally put what they learn in the classroom into practice. Another benefit is that after the students get their professional certification, they can get jobs without following the traditional university route.
In 2016, the innovation center expanded from 6000 square feet to 50,000, providing room for all of the district’s students to work on innovative projects and initiatives.
