That approach got student Dylan Horan researching the potential for curing blindness with mini-cameras embedded in the eye.
University buy-in and tie-in
University faculty and students are mentoring and collaborating with Riverpoint Academy students, Pooler said. For example, WSU College of Pharmacy students are intrigued with engaging them in a research project.
Kingrey serves on the Riverpoint Academy board of advisers, which includes business people as well as educators from area schools and universities. They see the academy as a way to get more students into the pipeline toward higher education and, ultimately, jobs in the growing technology and health science fields.
The goal: career readiness
Planning and personalizing
Just normal geniuses
There are no textbooks. Students use school-provided laptops and iPads. They sit or stand at high tables designed for small-group collaboration. They talk a lot.
“They’re just normal-looking kids,” said Janet Frost, a WSU professor who will help the academy develop a math curriculum next year. “But then you talk to them, and they all sound like geniuses.”