Career Academy summer program pairs courses in culinary and engineering

A group of incoming Lincoln Public Schools ninth-graders spent the last six weeks cooking, creating, designing and dicing as part of a pilot summer school program at The Career Academy (TCA).

The 32 students from Culler, Park, Goodrich and Dawes middle schools spent their mornings split between two, two-hour courses: Introduction to Engineering Design and Culinary Foundations.

In the engineering design course, students used 3D animation software to design objects they then produced using a 3D printer, including a toy car and cookie cutters. They used the cookie cutters in their culinary course, which also included lessons on knife skills and meal preparation and presentation, to name a few.

Cory Free, an industrial technology teacher at Lincoln North Star High School, taught the engineering design course; Lovena Glantz, a family and consumer science teacher at Lincoln High School, taught the culinary course, along with Katie Skinner from Southeast Community College.

TCA Director Dan Hohensee said the program was a great way to expose students to some of the options they’ll have during their junior and senior years, when they can attend TCA, as well as offer them a head start on earning elective credits they’ll need to graduate.

“This is great preparation for high school and valuable exposure to career options,” Hohensee said.

The program was funded through a federal grant and offered to students who attended middle schools that receive federal Title I funds, which are awarded to schools with high rates of poverty.

Hohensee said TCA plans to offer the program again next summer, perhaps on an even larger scale through grants and other funding options. 

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