New Visions Engineering Exploration 

(A Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES*/Cornell University cooperative program) 

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Cornell Material Science Engineering and TST BOCES have joined to develop a one year, high school engineering experience for twelve seniors entitled New Visions Engineering. The program host students that are hand selected from the TST BOCES’ component schools in and around Ithaca, New York. Thanks to an Empire State Development (NYSTAR) matching grant to PARADIM, these exceptional high school students spend their senior year on campus immersed in an engineering exploration. 

A core idea of New Visions is to introduce the students interested in a studying engineering to possible engineering options related to college and career choices.  To achieve this students are given first-hand experiences related to the field of engineering. These experiences include: shadowing university engineering students, working in and touring research labs from across the engineering college, visiting regional businesses, hearing lectures from engineering faculty and grad students tailored to the New Visions students, and working in the PARADIM labs as part of participation in the UCLA TANMS Youth Science Program.   

The New Visions Engineering explorations program has four basic curriculum components: Honors Physics (concurrent enrollment course from Tompkins-Cortland Community College), Engineer Your World (a highly successful program developed by the engineering department at University at Texas, Austin), Senior English (local curriculum), and Economics and Government (local curriculum). Each of these content areas is taught within an central engineering theme.  

The instructor for this course is a NYS certified teacher hired through BOCES and the course is housed in Thurston Hall in the  Cornell engineering quad. The program launched in September 2017 and will welcome its second cohort September 2018. 90% of the first group is moving on to study engineering.   This program is be managed by James Overhiser, K-12 Director and PARADIM Education and Outreach Director. 

*BOCES is the Board of Cooperative Education Services