Every school teaches the Core Four: Math, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies. Math classes develop number skills, Language Arts develop literary skills. Science classes explore the workings of the world around us, while Social Studies explore the way we as human live in this world. Fulton Academy of Science and Technology goes beyond those with a fifth element, Innovation. Innovation Hour is a combination of the other disciplines with a goal of developing problem solving skills and exploring how those solutions benefit our fellow humans.
Following the Engineering Design Process, we ask what the problem is. The goal is not just to understand the perceived problem but also how that problem affects the lives of the people involved and what limits there are to solving the problem. We then brainstorm, generating ideas that might help achieve the solution. Next, there is planning, preparing what to do in the correct order, what materials are needed and how the solution will develop step by step. During this stage, some ideas may prove to not be possible or fall outside of the limits. We narrow down the ideas and keep working on the ones that might work and fit the constraints. Following that, we create, we build, we prototype and we make it happen. Some ideas do better than others, but we keep trying. That is the improving stage. Good enough is not good enough but is this solution the best we can do. Then we look back at the original problem and evaluate the end. This is the heart and soul of innovation.