By Josh Hoffman, Lower Merion Class of 2012

The Technology Education Association of Pennsylvania awarded LMHS their High School Program of Excellence award in 2009. The award’s name speaks for itself. The Lower Merion Technology Education Department won this award for

numerous reasons including, but not limited to, STEM community involvement, for the opportunities it provides to develop professional behavior, for its extra-curricular and co-curricular activities provided by the LMHS Technology and Engineering Club, which consists of DAWGMA robotics (FIRST and VEX) and TSA, and for constantly revising the curriculum to not only fit today’s standards but to adapt to the exponentially-changing technological world.

As a result of winning this award, Rich Kressly and Mark Piotrowski (referred affectionately as simply “Mr. P”) were given the opportunity to present at the TEAP conference on Friday, November 6, 2009 about the Technology Education program. They highlighted the six ideas that make up the basis of Lower Merion’s Technology Education curriculum:

• “Take care of people and machines will take care of themselves”
• Us versus the Problem
• Design is an iterative Process
• Failure is not Terminal
• Social Consciousness
• Gracious Professionalism

They also highlighted some of the works of their students (both official and unofficial) including Phil Ross for his service to FIRST, Jess Scolnic for running a Junior First Lego League challenge for elementary school students, Dan Zollman for creating the Pennsylvania TSA Inspiration Award, Sylvia Herbert for getting the LM Tech Club involved with Engineering Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that improves quality of life in developing communities, and Josh Hoffman for work on the Duplex Printing Project of the PA-TSA Green Initiative.

The presentation PowerPoint and script can be found at http://www.lmsdscitech.org/pages/handouts.html.