What can FIRST Badges do to support your local curriculum?

  1.  FIRST programs deliver experiences for students to learn and practice 21st Century skills, especially Critical Thinking, Collaboration and Communication along with deep learning of STEM concepts.
  2. FIRST Badges is competency-based, with active learning. Mentors and teachers can incorporate FIRST Badges into existing projects.
  3. The FIRST Badges curriculum was developed by experienced educators and FIRST mentors, with student input.
  4. FIRST Badges is easily incorporated into existing after-school programming or current school day courses.
  5. Each team leader (teacher / mentor) decides how best to assess the Level 1 or Level 2 badges and can customize assessment to individual student’s learning needs.
  6. Level 3 and Level 4 badges use portfolios assessed by trained professionals with FIRST teams experience.
  7. Earned FIRST Badges are awarded to students digitally and are compliant with the Open Badge Infrastructure.  Badges can be made public for the students to use in future employment or applications.
  8. The activities in FIRST Badges are aligned to national education standards, including the NGSS and the Common Core.
  9. Students can be awarded high school credit to fulfill the Michigan Merit Curriculum as elective credit or as determined by the local school curriculum needs. Badges can be added to high school transcripts as credit-based courses or as school based activities at the district’s discretion.
  10. The FIRST Badges program is available at no-charge to Michigan based FIRST Robotics Competition teams, due to generous grant funding.  Additionally, the FIRST Robotics 99h grant requirements of participation in the digital badging program are satisfied with the FIRSTBadges.com implementation. Teams outside of Michigan are charged an annual fee to participate in the program.

Ready to have your students earn FIRST Badges?  Work with your existing FRC team mentors, create an implementation plan and acknowledge your student’s hard work.

Want to start a FIRST Robotics Competition Team?  Contact FIRST in Michigan for more information.