When the pandemic pulled me away from a 20 year career as a licensed Florida Architect and into homeschool mom, I found inspiration to share my career with today's youth.

My name is Melissa Busch, and I own AID Consultants LLC, where I provide architectural and interior design conceptual designs to residential clients while at the same time, tutoring local homeschool students in this amazing field of architecture.

I created curriculum to introduce today's youth to the architectural, engineering, and construction industry.

The "Introduction to Architecture" course, designed for home educated students ages 12+, includes 17 lecture-style videos, review questions, essay topics, and simple hands-on activities in each lesson. The course was written following Florida registration, codes, and standards; however, the course is applicable to the majority of jurisdictions and useful information for in any state. With this a-la-cart offering, there is no requirement to complete all of the lessons, or to complete them in order (although sequential order is recommended).

NEW: "Home Design" course is a 12-part lecture video series that walks students in grades 7-12 through the design process and where they will hand-draw their own home (to-scale). Students will gain an understanding of what blueprints are, how they are set up, what is included, and lessons on drafting and drawing with simple drafting tools. After learning the basics of building construction, finishes, and utilities while they practice using the drafting tools to create a site plan, floor plan, elevations, MEP plans, and more. This course includes self-paced video lecture lessons and requires some additional supplies to complete the exercises and assignments ending in a portfolio of progression from schematic design through design development for their home.

"Let's Build" curriculum packets include 12 weeks of lessons designed for co-op tutors (or moms looking for a STEM curriculum). This packet introduces elementary-age students to structural engineering concepts by identifying standard terminology for structural components, loads/forces, connections, and modes of failure, all while practicing these concepts in fun hands-on building activities. Packet for each Semester (Fall and Spring) includes Tutor Instructions (PDF), Course spreadsheet/receipt/attendance (both in PDF and Excel), supply lists (with hyperlinks to product suggestions), course description, curriculum flyer and course syllabus (both PDF and editable Canva link), teaching graphics, flashcards, tips and hints.

NOTE: Receipts can be provided for Florida scholarship purposes upon request.