Pre-College Program

CBiRC’s pre-college education strategic plan is to form long-standing partnerships with central Iowa school districts and school districts located in relative proximity to CBiRC partner institutions. The pre-college programs will focus primarily on grades 6–12 with a mission to effectively impart in the next generation of students the relevance of the engineering profession; the skills required to succeed in this profession; and its value in our technological society. The technical content of the pre-college education program will include the broader biorenewables area including both chemicals and biofuels.

The Des Moines Public Schools District (DSMPSD), the largest district within Iowa (30,000 students, 63 schools 40% minority enrollment and over 50% students receiving free or reduced lunch), will be the initial partnering school district. From the best practices learned through this partnership, we will extend the pre-college education program in PY 3 to two smaller school districts in central Iowa, and in PY 5 to a selected Albuquerque, NM, school district in partnership with UNM and a selected school district in Houston, TX in partnership with Rice University. CBiRC will partner with The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) to create teacher learning communities within each school and between schools of the same district.