The Joint U.S./French Research Partnership Between The Rockdale Magnet School For Science And Technology (Conyers, Georgia, Usa) And The Lycee De La Communication (Metz, France).

The Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology is an alliance between the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Engineering and the Rockdale County Public Schools. Immediately adjacent to Georgia Tech's French campus (Georgia Tech Lorraine) is the French high school, the Lycée de la Communication. In early 2002 and with the support of the Georgia Tech’s Atlanta and French administrations, the Lycée de la Communication (in Metz, France) and Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology (25 miles from Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus in Conyers, Georgia USA) agreed to an experiment in which French and US students are paired to perform joint research projects. In autumn 2002, ten US students visited France to meet with their French research partners. In April 2003, French students will reciprocate and visit Georgia. Each visiting group resides in local homes and participates in the academic and home life of their host families. The organizers hope to repeat annually and expand with goals including joint and French participation in science and engineering competitions. The US School (Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology) The Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology (RMSST, www.rockdale.gatech.edu) was founded in 2000. This magnet high school provides a unique combination of required research classes and projects, an international research partnership, and direct liaison with college engineering personnel. Specialized AP and magnet school science, mathematics, and research classes are taught to the participating 130 magnet students by magnet school teachers, while non-magnet school classes are taken with the general population and their teachers in a 1400 student suburban US high school. Each student participates in required research classes during their 9, 10, and 11 grades with each student formally defining, executing, and presenting their research project in multiple fora. Research ideology is presented in 9 grade with students’ initial projects requiring an experiment with single independent and dependant variables and increasing complexity during subsequent grades. All students are required to procure mentors for their projects, execute their experiments, produce quantitative results including statistics, and provide written and oral presentations. The relationship with Georgia Tech provides access to personnel (a dedicated liaison engineering PhD, professorial, graduate, and undergraduate assistance), facilities (i.e. nuclear, biomedical, chemical, instrumentation) typically unavailable and often unknown to traditional high school science students, and access to Georgia Tech's campus in Metz, France. Georgia Tech’s interests in the magnet school include fostering more indigenous engineering student candidates. Although only beginning its third year and incorporating about 45 rising 9 graders each year, to date and amongst other P ge 8.149.1 “Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education” honors, the school accumulated a majority of prizes in regional science and engineering fair awards, sent two students to the International Science and Engineering Fair, and produced two Siemens Westinghouse semi-finalists. The French School (Lycée de la Communication) The Lycée de la Communication (Lycom, www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/pres-etab/lycom) was founded in 1990 and is a 2000 student joint vocational and high school in Metz, France. Divided spatially along architectural features, the vocational school portion of Lycom features media communications specializations and support facilities including working television studios, audio and video mixing suites, electronic and traditional visual arts studios, and electronics laboratories. Again with clever architectural divisions, the high school (Lycée) portion of the school hosts the traditional three French academic tracks: arts and literature, business, and science. The relationship between the US and French schools is with the US magnet and French science track students. Connecting the US and French Schools Georgia Tech Lorraine (GTL, www.georgiatech-metz.fr) is the European platform for Georgia Tech, and its campus is located within visual and walking distance of the Lycom campus. Metz is midway between Paris, France and Frankfurt, Germany, and is the capital of the French Lorraine region. Located in a mountain valley in a Venice-like setting centered on islands in the Moselle River, this region was at times its own independent country and fought over repeatedly by French and German interests as is evidenced in the city’s architecture and particularly the central cathedral. The European Union banking and court centers of Luxembourg are nearby. Georgia Tech Lorraine and Lycom are located on the Technopole 2000 research campus which includes several technology-oriented and international corporate and academic institutions including the French Supélec University. Metz is a cultural, economic, and geographic European center. The nationally centralized French Ministry of Education authorities initiated a program of structured personal studies during the 2000-2001 academic year stating that all French Lycée students will experience a research component during their 11 and 12 grades corresponding to a six to eight week study. The central authority annually provides a set of general topics, and students are expected to identify a research topic by mid-November and to present their project by the end of the academic year. To date, this had not been implemented in most French schools beyond poster session presentations sponsored by individual teachers. In addition, France has almost no pre-college tradition of science or technology competitions similar to US science and engineering fairs. Outside of France is an international plethora and hierarchy of competitions with many affiliated with the International Science and Engineering Fair organization (www.sciserv.org/isef). With hopes for future interaction and prompted by international visits between Rockdale County and Metz leaders in the late 1990s, a sister-school relationship between the Metz and Rockdale high schools was declared. In December 2001, Dr. Whit Smith, Atlanta liaison between Georgia Tech and the Rockdale Magnet School, met in Metz with Michael Gegout (Director, Lycom) in a visit hosted by Dr. Francois Malassenet (Director, Georgia Tech Lorraine) to investigate P ge 8.149.2 “Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education” relationship potentials between the French and US high schools. Quickly obvious was the common research project theme. Discussions led to the decision for both schools to host research projects jointly executed by teams consisting of both US and French students. This was formalized in early 2002 with plans to experiment initially during the 2002-3 academic year by identifying and empowering pairs of (French-US) students through visits and internet resources. The initial goal is to pair French and US students to perform research projects with hopes of submitting the results in open fora for public and competitive evaluation. To suit introducing French students to the competitive fora, the US partner students visited Lycom in November 2002 to present their research projects to prospective French partner students. French and US partner students will be identified, then the French students will visit the US school in April 2003. Following the first year, both schools’ leadership will evaluate jointly and decide whether