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Rosemead HS Partnering with USC Engineering Professor
“Physics isn’t that hard,” says USC Viterbi Assistant Professor Rehan Kapadia, “it’s the way the math of the physics is taught that makes it difficult for high school students. Engineering reveals how the math of physics makes sense, and we can enliven high school curricula this way.” Even before joining the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering/Electrophysics, Dr. Kapadia tutored and mentored many high school students, and his own memories of how engineering enabled him to connect mathematical concepts to physics drive him to reach out to high school students and administrators. This week, he met again with Dr. Brian Bristol, Principal of Rosemead High School, where the Professor has a partnership with the math and physics teachers to bring engineering’s crosscutting approaches to their curriculum.
Rosemead High School interested Dr. Kapadia thanks to the persistence of Mr. Qui Nguyen, an electrical engineer whose high school son, Bryan, joined Dr. Kapadia’s research team last summer as part of USC Viterbi’s Summer High School Intensive in Next-Generation Engineering (SHINE) program. Mr. Nguyen volunteers to tutor scores of high school students at Rosemead High, which Bryan’s older sister also attended. Dedicated to helping underprivileged students succeed in STEM, Mr. Nguyen introduced his son’s SHINE professor to Dr. Bristol. Along with Rosemead High’s math and physics teachers, Dr. Bristol planned ways Dr. Kapadia could contribute engineering’s crosscutting and project-based approaches to their curriculum over the next several years.
Touching base on plans for curriculum development, Dr. Bristol stopped by Dr. Kapadia’s office this week along with Mr. Qui Nguyen and Dr. Sergio Flores, Assistant Superintendent, Educational Services of the El Monte Union High School District and alumnus of USC Rossier School of Education.