EDUCATION: Project Lead the Way gives Bloomfield students a glimpse of the real world

By Nick Schneider Dustin Schulte and Alex Toon (left) look over their project that uses a light beam to sort marbles. [Order this photo]

A unique and non-traditional approach toward education is giving students at Bloomfield Junior-Senior High School an early glimpse at the real world of problem-solving, team work and dreaming outside of the box.

Future engineers are getting hands-on training at the high school level through the Project Lead the Way program.

The PLW program is currently offered in some form at all five Greene County school districts -- thanks to a grant secured by the Greene County Educational Consortium.

By Nick Schneider Instructor Candi Lang, at right, discusses a project's progress with a junior high student Ashley Dugger. [Order this photo]

Gateway is the junior high component while Introduction to Engineering Principles and Principles of Engineering Design is offered at the high school level.

Many state universities offer credit in the school of engineering for these courses.

Credits in the school of engineering are available at Vincennes University, Ivy Tech, Ball State, Indiana State and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. At Purdue, credit is offered in the school of technology.

It's a project-based, inquiry-based learning instruction. It's not a lecture, so students learn team building, they learn problem-solving, according to PLTW teacher at Bloomfield Junior-Senior High School Candi Lang, who is in her third year of teaching the program.

"In these classes students learn to work as a team, problem-solve, and work through their frustrations to figure things out. We have a lot of 'ah-ha' moments, and those are very cool to observe," said Lang.

In the program, students are introduced to principles in mechanical engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, construction technology, ballistics engineering, biomedical engineering, motorsports engineering, computer graphics, robotics, automation and more.

"Hands-on" team and individual projects focus on topics such as bridge design, digital forensics, metal casting, advanced manufacturing and electronic music.

Class members actually design and build prototype models of many of their projects during the class -- which meets for one period daily.

"We are starting to get into truss designs and bridge building. What their challenge is, the students were given a list of criteria or specifications ... and the rest is up to them," Lang said.

They utilize Fisher-Technics projects to build many of the models, which Lang compared to building with oversized "Legos on steroids."

"They (the students) get the computer to download a program into an interface and then the interface will tell them what to do. They learn about computer programing. They are given a challenge and they have to design their things how they want it," Lang said. "They come up with totally different ideas."

Lang explained that the class gets students to think for themselves and in many of the projects there really isn't a right way or a wrong way to do it. The end result is what is important.

"It's really neat to just tell them the problem and then let them decide how to fix it. Some of them use gravity and some of them use motors," she said. "There is a lot of team work involved in this."

A bio-med class, taught by Mark Bartlow, was added at Bloomfield this year. In this 10th grade level class, students are introduced to the bio-medical areas, such a forensics, macro-molecules and proteins and other career branches of the field.

Sophomore Adam Carver said in the class they are currently building protein receptors.

"It's really good. I like it a lot," Carver said of the class.

Carver said he's still weighing his career choice and field of study in college, but the class has him thinking about going into the medical field.

"I thought this (class) would be a good thing to have also like a background thing in case I change my mind," he said.

While the curriculum was first instituted in New York State high schools in 1997, Indiana now boasts the most participants in the program.

The program gets valuable professional expertise from employees at Boston Scientific in Spencer and Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane. Both have members on the PLTW advisory board and provide input on what kind of job skills are needed to succeed in the engineering field, Lang said.

Boston Scientific has also provided grant money to schools to assist with the funding of the PLW program.

"Crane has been wonderful in giving us extra materials that can be used. Boston Scientific has also come in and given me some materials," she said.

NSWC Crane employees also provide math tutoring help to Bloomfield students several times a week in before and after school sessions, she pointed out.

PLTW students are also encouraged to participate in the annual Crane Science Fair.

Sophomore David Hestand said he enjoys the class.

"It was a nice experience. We got to do a lot of hands on activities," he told the Greene County Daily World.

Hestand said he got involved in the PLTW program as an eighth grader in an introductory class.

Since then he's been able to take the class for several more years.

The 10th grade student, who said he is still weighing his options for a career choice, said this year the class has been involved in several projects -- including a robotic marble sorter and ping pong ball cannon to learn about ballistics.

Speaking of the PLTW program, Hestand added, "It would be a good class for anyone to take, especially anyone who is interested in engineering."

Lang said the PLTW classes also enhance a student's transcript -- especially students who are seeking an engineering field of study in college.

One problem she sees is the PLTW classes are not currently "weighted" at Bloomfield and do not impact the grade point average as much as other advanced study classes do.

Last year, she had some seniors who didn't take the PLTW class because they decided to take a "more weighted" class.

"If we could offer this as a weighted class it would be great," Lang said. "But that has to go through the school board."

Lang, who is a 1987 graduate of Shakamak High School and a graduate of Indiana State University, is hopeful that funding can be found to offer the PLW program all four years of high school at Bloomfield.

She said she worked at Patriot Engineering in Terre Haute before getting into teaching and that provided her with valuable "in the field" experience that is helping her as a PLTW instructor.

She said the PLTW program in Greene County has a wonderful working partnership with Indiana State University which has been very beneficial to the teachers and students.

Lang said PLTW receives input from professionals in the area and the Advisory Board is looking for volunteers from other science-related businesses in the Greene County area.

To volunteer, contact Lang at Bloomfield Junior-Senior High School at 384-4550.