Roll Down Like Water Begins Summer Session
The institute is designed to demonstrate for educators and parents how to create psycho-social interventions which restore the innate curiosity and drive to learn among students who are underperforming academically and socially in K-12 classrooms.
It builds on the studies of successful African-American technologists selected over the past 12 years during the 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology.
The first year of Potrero Progress showed the practical utility of custom-designed curriculum which used the actual communities of students as the classroom, engaging a variety of community and occupational partners to create a team between students and instructors to explore and create knowledge.
From Salt to San Francisco General was the first year theme. An outside evaluator reported that students described the eight week course as "a dream come true." The only negative response was their wondering if it would ever happen again.
The objective of Roll Down Like Water is to take a common substance such as water to teach desired skills from the California mathematics and science frameworks in a context of students own community needs. Participating students will trace a drop of water from the Martin Luther King Jr. Waterfall in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens to the reflecting pool in the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-violent Social Change in Atlanta to the new national monument honoring Dr. King on the National Mall to be opened in August.
Register online here.
The eighth annual National Black Business Month in August will support this learning initiative, including supporting trips for students to the Mall monument opening. Among the community-minded entrepreneurs embracing the project are Apollo Programming, The Bernard and Shirley Kinsey Foundation for Arts and History, and Georgia Aerospace Systems.
I Belong culminates with a day of activities on June 18 at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. The premiere of A Great Day in Gaming: From South Bronx to Silicon Valley: the Gerald A. Lawson Story will describe the African-American inventor of the first cartridge video game console and his rise from creating his own radio station as a teenager in New York public housing. Additionally, two panels of technology pioneers will describe the imprint of black innovation on high technology historically and currently. The events will end with a round of emerging new enterprises in cutting edge fields from pharmaceuticals to nanotechnology.
