IEEE TISP/EIC Subset

The Engineers In the Classroom (EIC) subprogram of the Teacher In-Service Program (TISP), led by John Purchase, is enlisting retirees of the IEEE Phoenix section to take the ideas of the TISP directly into the classroom. This subset was started at the beginning of 2009 and as of May has already held 59 sessions in classrooms across the valley.

See our article in the Tempe Republic HERE!

The IEEE Phoenix Section's offer to Science Teachers:

• The teacher chooses a topic from the available projects and helps tailor it to the unit
• We bring the turnkey project-based science lesson that supports the Content Standards into the classroom
• We provide all the materials and volunteer engineers at no cost
• The teacher provides classroom management
• Our volunteer engineers do the rest!

To schedule one of these projects for your school the Science Teacher should contact John Purchase:

Details and pictures of the currently available, or available upon request, lesson plans for Elementary and Middle Schools are available here: TISP_for_Principals_and_Teachers.pdf


These sessions have included Basic Electricity Sessions with students designing and building switches/switching networks to provide power to bulbs, All About Motors Sessions in which students built their own electric motors, Working with Watermills Sessions in which students built and tested out different waterwheel designs, and even a Here Comes the Sun session in which students built and raced solar powered cars.

Here Comes the Sun

Solar Car Races at Sacaton Middle School

Basic Electricity Session	All About Motors Session

Working with Watermills Session

Lesson Plans

Through the TryEngineering website, created by the IEEE in conjunction with IBM and TryScience, pre-written lesson plans and learning aids have been provided as resources for TISP sessions and educators.

TryEngineering Lesson Plans

Why Use Retirees?

• Retirees represent a tremendous pool of engineering talent and knowledge
• They know how engineering knowledge is applied in the real world of industry, academia, government, etc.
• They are very capable of being able to show school children in science classes how what they are being taught relates to the real world and how science and math studies can lead to a fruitful and enjoyable career in engineering
• Plus they probably have more time they can devote to this cause than do our colleagues in full time employment and with young families

The Plan

• The intention is to implement TISP at the grass roots level of IEEE
• Each IEEE retiree acts as the "lead" for a school in his / her neighborhood
• A couple of other IEEE retirees join this "lead" as "teaching supporters"
• Thus each retiree will be both a lead at one school and a supporter at another school
• The "lead" contacts one to three other retirees living close to him / her to act as "teaching supporters" identified from a list of volunteers maintained by the TISP group

How Do I Get Involved?

If you are a retiree interested in getting into the schools and making a difference please contact John Purchase.