{"id":9314,"date":"2022-12-07T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=9314"},"modified":"2024-09-10T12:08:49","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T16:08:49","slug":"purdue-polytechnic-high-school-seeking-collaborations-with-purdue-faculty-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2022\/Q4\/purdue-polytechnic-high-school-seeking-collaborations-with-purdue-faculty-staff","title":{"rendered":"Purdue Polytechnic High School seeking collaborations with Purdue faculty, staff"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Macarena Guerrero, Purdue Polytechnic High School relationship manager. (Purdue University photo\/John Underwood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Working in positions ranging from high school social studies teacher to principal, Macarena Guerrero has served as an educator for more than a decade. In her latest role as Purdue Polytechnic High School (PPHS) relationship manager, Guerrero is enhancing students\u2019 learning environments in a new way \u2014 by connecting them with individuals and opportunities at Purdue University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guerrero collaborates with Purdue faculty and staff and PPHS staff and coaches (what PPHS calls its teachers) to develop partnerships that provide PPHS students with experiences like projects, labs and field trips to Purdue\u2019s West Lafayette campus. She encourages all types of collaborations that meet students\u2019 needs and strengthen the pathway to Purdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt looks very different depending on the project and depending on the faculty,\u201d Guerrero says. \u201cThere\u2019s no one model of collaboration, and there\u2019s no one approach to it. We listen to the students\u2019 needs, we ask, \u2018How can we support students?\u2019 and then we work to find someone at Purdue who can help maximize their potential. We partner with faculty and staff in different colleges to ensure PPHS students are exposed to the wide range of academic opportunities that Purdue offers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One opportunity arose when Neil Knobloch and Hui-Hui Wang, professors in the Department of Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication, attended a PPHS partnership development meeting hosted by the College of Agriculture and Purdue Polytechnic Institute. After listening to PPHS coaches\u2019 needs, Wang and Knobloch suggested PPHS take part in a project funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. PPHS North, PPHS Schweitzer Center at Englewood and five other Indiana high schools chose to participate in the project, which introduces students to challenges in hydroponics, food science and agricultural robotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At PPHS North, coaches Dustin Homan and Vonnah Fox took part by co-teaching a new agriculture class and partnering with Jovial Family Farms founder Bobbie Jellison to help students learn more about urban agriculture and how it can mitigate local issues like food insecurity. Students built their own units to grow fresh produce at the farm, receiving occasional feedback on how to make them more sustainable. The class also took a field trip to Purdue\u2019s West Lafayette campus, where students toured multiple College of Agriculture buildings and learned about insects, Indiana hardwood species, gardening, sensory analysis and the university\u2019s agBOT \u2014 an autonomous machine that can identify plants, kill weeds and fertilize crops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hands-on activities inside and outside the classroom have helped students like Phillip Hulsey develop real-world, complex problem-solving skills and learn more about careers in agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have learned a lot about agriculture and the world that we live in,\u201d Hulsey says. \u201cI think this class is very beneficial to me and the students I have taken it with, and I hope that it will continue to grow and give opportunities to other students like it has done to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PPHS North is aiming to increase the partnership\u2019s longevity by creating a new urban agriculture curriculum, which will include opportunities for students to complete summer internships at Purdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the collaboration, Knobloch and Wang have formed a close relationship with Homan and Fox by guiding them through the learning modules, answering questions and visiting PPHS North to check on the students\u2019 progress. They hope they can continue to work with the class even after the grant ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a model school and an innovative school, and so they do project-based learning; they do learner-centered teaching, and they do real-world challenges for students,\u201d Knobloch says. \u201cIt has been awesome to work with the teachers and have this very open-to-innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guerrero says these types of relationships help set students up for success during and after high school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been able to see the impact that faculty and staff have on PPHS students and how that impact is fundamental to the success of the student,\u201d Guerrero says. \u201cFaculty and staff involvement is crucial to the success of PPHS students at Purdue, and, furthermore, to the success of underrepresented minority students and first-generation students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the number of PPHS graduates who continue their higher education at Purdue continues to expand, so does Guerrero\u2019s role. Along with supporting PPHS students, Guerrero is focused on ensuring that PPHS graduates have the tools they need to thrive on Purdue\u2019s campus. She says faculty and staff can take simple steps to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt can range from being encouraging and making students feel like they belong to being that one go-to person on campus,\u201d Guerrero says. \u201cI cannot stress enough the importance of the relationship between PPHS students and staff and faculty and the support staff and faculty can provide them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to assisting PPHS, Guerrero says the opportunities are endless. Partnerships can take the shape of programs, summer experiences, visits to campus, professional development opportunities for coaches and more. The benefits of these collaborations are felt far beyond the students, graduates and coaches involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPPHS is making Purdue a much richer institution,\u201d Guerrero says. \u201cThe partnership between the two, and the pathway we have created, is contributing to fulfill Purdue\u2019s land-grant mission.  PPHS students have such diverse backgrounds and unique stories. They make Purdue more diverse and more representative of society.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faculty and staff can contact Guerrero at maguerre@purdue.edu<\/a> or 765-496-1463 to become involved with PPHS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working in positions ranging from high school social studies teacher to principal, Macarena Guerrero has served as an educator for more than a decade. In her latest role as Purdue Polytechnic High School (PPHS) relationship manager, Guerrero is enhancing students\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[359],"tags":[],"department":[],"source":[334],"purdue_today_topic":[92,74],"coauthors":[229],"class_list":["post-9314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-staff","source-purdue-today","purdue_today_topic-faculty-staff-know","purdue_today_topic-people"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9316,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9314\/revisions\/9316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9314"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=9314"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=9314"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=9314"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}