This school year, students at two Leander ISD high schools will benefit from their teachers’ “summer camp” experience at 3M’s Teachers Working in Science and Technology (TWIST) program, a paid, full-time mentoring program for community educators.
For six weeks this summer, Vandegrift High School physics teacher Andrew Perrone and Rouse High School physics teacher Dustin Smerek worked closely with 3M specialists to take a deep dive into product design, development and application using the latest technologies.
“I was able to see how science was applied on a daily basis in an industry setting,” said Smerek. “The biggest thing for me to take back to my classroom is a science attitude. As in any laboratory environment, experiments do not always go as planned. The scientists at 3M keep moving forward while learning something new. A failure is turned into a learning experience.”
