American Foundry Society representatives provided a better understanding of the casting industry to a group of Templeton Middle School students. Rick Yrigoyen and John Lewinski spoke to an afterschool group of technology and engineering students about basic casting process, high tech products created from sand castings and castings made locally. Each student in the afterschool program formed a sand mold, melted tin and poured a casting.
This is not the only exposure to manufacturing industries Templeton students experienced this year. Technology and engineering students attended the Waukesha and Washington County Manufacturing Career Expo, toured injection molding company SussexIM and participated in a “Day of Engineering” with volunteers from QuadTech and STEM Forward.
All Templeton seventh-graders take a quarterlong technology and engineering course, and eighth-graders have the option of taking a yearlong class. In seventh grade, students study the design process, drafting, 3D modeling and printing, and wood and plastic fabrication processes. Students in the eighth grade elective course continue to study concepts covered in the required course and advance to electricity, robotics, transportation, software coding, material properties and structures.
Templeton’s Technology and Engineering program is highly acclaimed. It was chosen the 2012 Wisconsin Technology Education Association Middle School Program of the Year, a 2013 International Technology and Engineering Education Association Program of Excellence and is a Project Lead the Way School of STEM Excellence.