Monica Bockman (Ms. Bockman) is the teacher for Madison’s Environmental Engineering pathway, where students explore engineering solutions for environmental challenges. Ms. Bockman is a STEM professional with a background in Industrial Engineering (Cal Poly, SLO) and Horticulture. Prior to becoming a Warhawk, she spent many years working as a Manufacturing Engineer in San Diego, and Shenzen, China. After leaving the Engineeing world, she went back to school to study Horticulture at Cuyamaca College. She enjoyed her work as a Certified Arborist for two years prior to pivoting careers go into teaching. Her experience in the engineering and horticultural fields allows her to connect students to San Diego’s unique challenges and innovations. Ms. Bockman's mission is to encourage students to explore their scientific curiosities through project-based learning and connecting face-to-face with industry partners. Ms. Bockman is also Madison’s Garden Club Advisor and strives to bring learning outdoors with projects that highlight sustainability, local ecosystems, and community contributions. 

Through this class you will discover and understand principles of physics, engineering, design and green-clean technologies.  Working individually and in teams, you will participate in a series of experimental projects such as designing wind generators and personal transportation devices to explore both alternative and traditional energy sources and transportation. The projects will provide a foundation for data collection, analysis, reflection, presentations and technical writing skills. Through these experiences you will hone your critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and Career Technical Education skills while learning key physics, engineering, and design concepts.  You will maintain an engineering slide deck throughout the year long course.  It will contain lab write-ups, diagrams and all other assignments. This course combines elements of physics, engineering, computer-aided design (CAD), and green technology to prepare you for success in college science and engineering as well as careers that can contribute to a greener environment for us all.

Through this class you will build on your knowledge of computer-aided design (CAD), the engineering design process, and project management to research, analyze and apply real world environmental solutions to clean energy, sustainable food production, land use planning and fundamental concepts related to sustainability. You will learn to create digital 3-dimensional (3-D), physical and mathematical model prototypes, receive feedback from “clients” and incrementally improve your prototypes, all while documenting the process.  You will collect and analyze data to inform decisions and share your data visually using charts, graphs, and geographic information systems (GIS). You will work in teams to create engineering design briefs for each of a series of progressively more difficult hands-on-projects and present your solutions to the “client”. This class enhances your abilities to integrate intermediate-level CAD skills into the design, engineering, and collaborative team processes. In addition, you will investigate and develop a personalized career path through a series of research-based career projects.  

Sustainable Energy and Environmental Technologies is an advanced project-based course with a strong focus on environmentally sustainable practices. Students study design (standards, process, documentation, etc.) and learn to study and solve environmental problems in a systematic way. Students study product design from the perspective of life cycles and environmental impact. Students apply the design process to iteratively upgrade and analyze environmental monitoring systems.

Students research energy use and then engineer solutions for green energy problems.  They build alternative energy projects (sun, wind, water, etc.) to solve some of these problems. Students consider human needs, such as sustainable food sources, and they learn about problems and solutions regarding sustainability in this area. Finally, students apply the knowledge that they gained throughout the course to a local and relative environmental problem through a capstone project.  They present their solutions to their peers and a panel of experts and receive feedback.