Lowcountry Tech Academy (LTA) began as technical career academy program in Charleston County School District and recently merged with Burke High School as part of a four academy campus.

As part of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Career Academies workforce readiness initiative, Charleston Defense Contractors Association (CDCA) has been working closely with LTA students for two years in a variety of content areas including Cyber Security, IT and Digital Art.

The CDCA volunteers’ investment of time and resources has helped provide hands-on and programmatic assistance, including work-based learning site visits and a state of the art cyber security camp.  These real world experiences help make academic content truly come to life for students.

Last spring, students in the Digital Art and Design major classes worked directly with CDCA on a joint project to create banners for CDCA’s Mobile App contest. The banners were displayed during the C5ISR conference. Students discussed the project requirements with professional designers from Mag Design.

LTA Digital Art and Design teacher Julie Zeigler provided guidance as students crafted several working drafts. The design process continued and included meeting with the designers to hear feedback and gain suggestions. Students redrafted their designs, and finally a winner was chosen to represent the collaborative work of the students.

“The ability for students to work directly with designers and receive one-to- one feedback in a relevant setting that would be used in a real world application helped motivate students. We appreciate the opportunity for students to develop technical and 21 st century skills so valuable to employers”, said Zeigler.

Thanks to all that made this terrific project-based learning opportunity possible for CCSD students!