About Chris

Bio

My name is Chris Wakefield and normally I teach 9th Grade Math and Physics at High Tech High Media Arts. For the 2012-2013 school year, I have a unique opportunity to work with the Innovation Unit to help schools in England explore ways how they can make their curriculum more hands on. Basically, I am helping schools become more Project Based in their approach.

My backstory:

Growing up, I loved playing soccer and basketball, and just being a kid. I was always good at math and science, so in college I decided to study Mechanical Engineering at The University of Virginia. The first several years of college were a rude awakening for me. I never developed the necessary study skills in high school to succeed in college. To me, high school was filled with days where I would do 1st period's HW in homeroom, then do the HW for 2nd period during 1st period, and so on. Luckily for my students I try to ensure that they develop better study skills than what I had.

During college, I met some of my best friends and took the hardest classes UVA had to offer. During 2 of my summers I worked as an Engineering Intern. One summer I worked as a Design Engineering Intern for The Architect of the Capitol in Washington DC. Another summer I worked as a Design Engineering Intern for Merck Pharmaceuticals. Through these jobs I developed my CAD skills, and got tons of valuable real world experience. I worked on projects ranging from designing HVAC systems in the House of Representatives and the Capitol building, to designing part of an assembly line for an anti-AIDS cocktail, to redrawing duct work on a 65 million dollar air reclamation project.

After college I worked as a Golf Course Engineer for the Irrigation Division of The G.L. Cornell Company in Gaithersburg, MD. As a Golf Course Engineer, I was responsible for over 550 golf courses in Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, Northern Virginia, and the eastern tip of West Virginia. Working with G.L. Cornell I did the following: Used spreadsheets to prepare quotes for customers, used multimeters to check current and voltage for satellite irrigation controllers on golf courses, checked for radio signals for irrigation control from the central computer, programmed databases at the central computer, used PowerPoint to make multimillion dollar sales presentations.

My engineering experience helps me bring a "real world" feel to problems and projects. It also helps when students ask "why do we have to learn this?"

After 3 years of Engineering (and watching the movie Office Space a few too many times), I decided to switch to my dream career, teaching. Over the past eleven years, I have taught AP, IB, A Level, GCSE, and honors level Physics in addition to teaching integrated Math/Physics at HTHMA. My favorite classes are the integrated Math/Physics classes, because I feel that all subjects should blend together.

Please feel free to contact me at cwakefield@hightechhigh.org.