In my previous post I mentioned that there was a new company that finally gives students the answer to the age old nagging questions: Why do I need to know this?” and “When am I ever going to use this in real life?  The company is called Nepris and they are bridging the gap between academics and the workplace by empowering teachers, engaging industry and inspiring students.

Nepris is an online platform that makes it easy for teachers to connect with industry experts to bring the real world to the classroom in 3 easy steps.

1) Teachers create a session request based on a curriculum topic or activity that can benefit from an industry connection. These requests can also map their session to the Common Core or to individual state curriculum standards.

2) Nepris finds the right industry professional(s) with skills that match the teacher’s request.

3) Industry professionals virtually connect with the classroom to have an interactive discussion with the students.

The sessions are held live by video conference and are highly interactive. The professionals engage the students with interesting discussions related to their curriculum.

The sessions help students make the connection between what they are learning  and how it translates in to real world use.  For example a 5th grade class learning about measurements connected with a fashion designer, a 1st grader class learning about soil interacted with “Dr. Dirt” a professor of plant and soil and an advanced placement chemistry class learned about the chemistry behind cosmetics by talking with a cosmetic professional.

All of the sessions are recorded and archived for future use, allowing educators to use them for their lessons.

There are already over 80 completed sessions.

You can view a few of these sessions by visiting the Nepris Blog 

I recently had the opportunity to connect with a 2nd grade class for a lesson on “How Communication Has Changed Over Time” I will be writing about that experience next week!

To sign up for Nepris as a professional or teacher, or to see a demo, visit Nepris.com