DESCRIPTION:

Join father-and-son presenters Steve and Luke Bousley as they share their experiences of implementing fishing rod building in two rural Wisconsin schools. This unique hands-on project engages students across multiple disciplines, fostering creativity, communication, problem-solving, and real-world skills. This opportunity also leads to expanded partnerships with local and national businesses, community agencies, and the outdoor industry. Learn practical tips, access valuable resources, and explore how rod building can enrich your classroom, school, and community. Discover how to bring this exciting opportunity to your school and inspire your students with a highly engaging and versatile learning experience.

This topic is often a platform for schools looking to implement engaging curriculum within their Fab Lab, technology education, AgriScience, physics, or STEM-based courses. Method of Delivering Content: This presentation will provide information from the experiences Steve and Luke had in implementing rod building within the classroom setting, obstacles that they needed to overcome from the idea, planning, an implementing this concept, as well as local and national resources used to accomplish this activity. Luke and Steve provide visuals of the completed rods, materials used to build the rods, and a visual display that engages audience members as well. They inject a considerable amount of ideas that can be applied immediately in the school setting. They deliver this information with humor, engagement, and concrete application into a school setting. The information is provided from a district, building administrative level as well as teacher perspectives.

Steve and Luke have presented this topic at the WTEA state conference and received outstanding reviews from conference participants and organizers. This was a very popular sectional with over 70+ individuals. They have also taught rod building seminars to educators, who intend to use this in their classroom or school.

Learning Objectives:

1. This presentation will provide participants with ideas on how to plan and implement rod building within their school.

2. Participants will learn about specific community partnerships that assisted in making this successful in two rural schools.

3. Participants will learn about this topic from two perspectives: the school perspective, Steve is a 28-year veteran teacher and administrator, and a first- year teacher perspective, as Luke is in his first year as a technology education teacher.