On Wednesday, Monroe High School’s LAUNCH students hosted a LAUNCH Showcase event to present their eight newly completed projects to the public. Each team of 3-4 junior and senior LAUNCH students had a tabletop display and a short presentation about their project. They were then open to questions from those who attended the event.
This open house experience was just one of the unique experiences LAUNCH provides to allow students to cultivate professional skills. Skills learned in LAUNCH, such as understanding expectations, time management and working as a team, are critical to providing our students a competitive advantage in their professional careers.
Third Trimester Projects
Each team of students worked on their project with a mentor from the business or organization. Business Analytics students worked with the following businesses on their projects:
● Colony Brands — Develop strategies to re-engage customers who haven’t purchased from Seventh Avenue in the past 36+ months?
● Monroe Truck Equipment — To improve the production and efficiency of the warehouse while decreasing the amount of walking required to pull the required parts.
● Monroe Truck Equipment — Calculate lead times for existing products based on queue time between operations, the number of operations, and the number of levels in a product’s bill of materials.
Media Solutions students worked on five different projects with:
Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) — Increase ADRC resources to help seniors with technology with pamphlets and a partnership with National Honor Society students at Monroe High School.
Aster Assisted Living — Promote Aster Assisted Living facilities with video tours to increase the interaction of people interested in their care and services.
Green County Family YMCA — Find ways to increase the dollar donations for the YMCA’s Capital Campaign with strategies such as posters, radio interviews and a press release.
Main Street Monroe — Increase engagement on the Monroe Main Street Instagram account with videos of seven businesses and other strategies.
Southwestern Wisconsin Behavioral Health Partnership — Develop strategies to increase public engagement and outreach, with the goal of having more men and farmers accessing mental health resources.
Do you have an idea for a project for your organization?
Monroe High School is pleased to announce that the LAUNCH program is growing! In addition to providing experiential learning opportunities in Business Analytics and Media Solutions, we are striving to meet the workforce needs of our community by offering two new topic areas: Behavioral Health and Skilled Building Trades.
LAUNCH projects should meet the following criteria:
● Real world projects that are important, but aren’t a number one priority. Consider items 7 through 9 on your to-do list.
● Problems/projects that don’t already have a solution
● Projects that involve authentic problem solving and new idea development
● Projects that can be completed by a team of 3-5 students within 8-10 weeks
● Projects with clearly identified deliverables and outcomes
Businesses and organizations that offer projects should choose a project coach who will meet with their team of students for an hour every week. Coaching may take place in-person, through online meetings, or in classrooms where coaches act as professional experts, facilitators of process, and guides to delivering learning value.
LAUNCH is an example of how businesses and our school can work together to solve problems. It provides students with the opportunity to learn about local businesses and organizations and helps them identify and learn the skills they need to be successful.
If your business or organization would like to submit a project for LAUNCH students to solve, please apply on our website monroeschools.com/schools/high/academics/project-application.cfm or contact Cara Carper at caracarper@monroe.k12.wi.us or (608) 328-7573.
