EAST Students Show Projects To Visitors

LINCOLN — The 30 adults and 40 students who showed up for the EAST Night Out on Dec. 3 at the high school cafeteria learned how students in the program use teamwork and technology that can be used in future careers.

“It went really good,” said Gene Kephart, facilitator of the Environmental and Spatial Technologies program. “Parents were amazed at the technology we use.”

EAST schools are equipped with classrooms containing state-of-theart work-stations, servers, software and accessories, including GPS/GIS mapping tools, architectural and CAD design software, 3D animation suites, virtual reality development and more. Students identify problems in their local communities and then use these tools to develop solutions, collaborating with civic and other groups in the process, according to Kephart.

Morgan Prince, manager of the EAST program, hosted the program that lasted two hours.

One example of the use of the technology students use was in a video overlaid with graphics created by Jeremy Miller. The video showed Miller walking down the Lincoln High School hallway with 3- D holograms coming out of nowhere.

“It was amazing,” Kephart said.

Joseph Grinder was working on the game, Tower Defense, when the program started.

Student game writers are learning a lot more than creating a game that can be played, according to Kephart. “They are learning how to use the same software that can be used for the military, space projects, legal cases, medical field, and in car designs and assimilation. The benefits of learning this are huge. It can be used in real industry application for the future.”

Another EAST student, Tyler Drain, is learning how to do phone apps that can be used by businesses.

Aidan Hendrix is working on fire safety coloring books for children.

Prince is hoping to use her EAST management skills in the future. She works with clients such as the city of Lincoln, the Lincoln Area Chamber, Arkansas Doctors Museum and others by coordinating projects EAST students can do. They also do business cards for those who need them.

“I’ve been in EAST two years,” Morgan said with a smile. Her plans for the future are to work in business management or to own a business.

Community proj-ects students have done include fliers for Christmas On the Square, scheduled for Dec. 14.

“We’re there to service the community and their coming to us provides work for our students,” said Kephart.

“It’s a good class to join,” said Alejandro Martinez.

“EAST is an educational model that provides new ways of learning for modern students,” Kephart said. “Our students showed visitors to EAST Night Out how student-driven service projects can be accomplished through the use of the latest in technology.”

Lincoln High EAST has 60 students.

PAT HARRIS ENTERPRISE-LEADER Joseph Grinder and Shelton Sipes look over a game created by Grinder named Tower Defense. Creating games also enables students to learn software that can be used in real career industry application in such fields as medical, legal, military and the...