This year, Matthew Bidwell joins Cypress High School as the new teacher for the Aerospace Engineering course and the Green Energy course. Bidwell previously taught at South Junior High School, where he taught biology, woodshop, and robotics.
Bidwell graduated from Chapman University and majored in biological sciences. Bidwell teaches the Green Energy Course because it speaks to his passion about keeping the environment clean instead of harming it and causing pollution, climate change, and any other harm that can come to our environment. Something that Bidwell does in order to contribute to that good change to our environment, is go on trips to Mexico with his family to do beach clean ups. “My family goes to Mexico for adventures, but while we’re there we do these beach clean ups, because a lot of the beaches we go to are very remote, so the trash that’s there has traveled millions of miles in the ocean, so while were there we wanted to leave it clean than how we found it.” Every year, Bidwell tries to do these beach clean ups in Mexico, and he ends up collecting two truckloads of trash. Mostly he’ll see bottles of soda, fishing nets, and any other commercial fishing equipment that has turned into debris.
Bidwell wants to bring more hands-on activities to Cypress High School, “I want to make Cypress as hands on as I can. My specialty as a teacher is getting you guys to use tools, getting to understand how to be safe, getting you to understand how to construct something in three dimensions, not just using paper or using computers.” Bidwell already had his students build solar and battery powered cars that run on their own and 3D designs that were printed into keychains, made from the 3D printers in his room, and wood that is laser cut into cool designs that students can keep for themselves. His main goal is to bring students out of their comfort zones and get the students to be comfortable with making 3D objects and using tools that they have never gotten the opportunity to use before.
Bidwell recognized that one of the most refreshing things that makes high school students different from junior high students is that high school students are better at advocating for themselves and much more responsible, which has made him feel better about letting students here handle tools that may be dangerous and try new hands-on activities that allow them to use their creativity. Lastly, Bidwell wants to strive for a better and sustainable recycling system that students can establish and push to be worked on, “I would like to help students to establish a more sustainable recycling system, one that’s student driven because it doesn’t work if it comes from the teachers.” Bidwell has observed that our current recycling system is not well maintained even though we have many recycling bins in our school, all the trash
that is in the regular trash bins and the recycling bins goes in the same place, which defeats the purpose of even having a recycling system. So with that information in mind, Bidwell believes that in order to really change the recycling system in Cypress, the students need that ambition to make the environment better so the students can implement that new sustainable recycling system, instead of staff trying to bring this change.
Besides teaching about his passion, Bidwell loves to go on adventures and do outdoor activities with his family and friends when there are any chances for him to go and do those things he loves. He says that the things that he loves to do most are camping, scuba diving, and hiking, anything that has to do with the outdoors and the water is something that he loves to do with his family.
As a new teacher in Cypress High school Bidwell says “I am really excited to be in Cypress, so far my students have been fantastic, and I’m happy to be here.” Bidwell is looking to make a fun and informative class that will bring the creativity and ambition out of students in Cypress High School.
