Educational leaders at Bald Eagle, Bellefonte and Penns Valley area school districts are working with Penn State’s Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program to create a course focused on business, innovation and entrepreneurship that will be open to high school students.

"Students will work with the community, will work with entrepreneurs, they will figure out what people need, and work toward the design process of creating, solving and helping with solutions," Bellefonte Area School District Superintendent Michelle Saylor said.

The course is based on what the HESE program calls D3 – discover, design, delight – and will be a semester in length with the IDEA Hub as an extension to allow students continued time to elaborate on their ideas from school.

To learn more about HESE at High School, visit this link: HESE at High School

This two-credit course incorporates English-language arts standards with humanitarian social issues and the entrepreneurial process. Through literature and research, students will engage in discussions and debates about social issues, brainstorm ideas and ultimately develop products or services that address these issues. Students will work to find big community problems and find impactful human-centered solutions. Students will develop communication skills, oral and written, to work with a variety of stakeholders including colleagues, businesses and organizations. Students will also develop sustainable business models to pitch and launch social ventures that could change lives.