LCHS: ENGINEERING
Engineering is the study of human design. The professional educators in the Engineering Department were practicing engineering-professionals prior to teaching at Liberty Common School. The teachers’ practical experience has benefitted both the development of the engineering curricula, and the pedagogy strategies of the department.
All students must complete Introduction to Engineering coursework as a graduation requirement.
Engineering Department: Guiding Philosophy:
Classical education and STEM education are complementary. We can have excellence in both areas and give students a well-rounded education.
There is wonder, truth, beauty, and goodness in engineering.
All students can benefit from engineering studies because engineering teaches creative problem-solving. Students must have background knowledge in science and math. The knowledge and patterns that students have learned in earlier grades are now applied in class to solve problems.
Engineering will solve many of humanity’s greatest problems, including: production of clean water, energy, manufacturing, and production of medical devices and medicines.
Capstone virtues will guide Liberty graduates to make moral choices while meeting society’s needs.
Engineering Department Head Mrs. Kay Lannen describes how her department underscores ethics across her curricula: “Engineering is really a field of trade-off thinking given a set of limitations. Those limitations are given a greater dimension as we prioritize the moral use of technology. A key purpose behind such an approach is to ensure our students become good citizens who are literate in a major next-generation field of public policy.” Teachers emphasize the Capstone Virtue of Patriotism to mold students into ethical and thoughtful users of technology, and to guide the civics-application of technology for a prosperous nation.
At the height of engineering is design, which correlates well with the problem-solving and creativity final-steps in the Thinking Framework. Engineering teachers lead up to these steps gradually and very deliberately. Teachers follow the Thinking Framework with fidelity to ensure students fully engage with the design process.
Engineering instructors also direct students to the Capstone Virtues of Gratitude and Justice as guiding principles for appropriate stewardship of natural resources, and maintenance of engineering equipmenT.