Stephen T. Schlutow, PLTW Teacher, Ruskin High School
Danielle and Dominique Roe, PLTW Students, 10th Grade, Ruskin High School
With the rapid advancement of technology in today’s society, it is difficult to stay current. Project Lead the Way (PLTW) makes a world of difference in enabling Kansas City area teachers and students to stay the course.
Nationally acclaimed, PLTW seeks to increase the number, quality, and diversity of engineers and technical professionals through collaboration with K–12 education, higher education, and industry. By engaging students in hands-on, real-world projects, PLTW helps them understand how the skills they are learning in the classroom can be applied in everyday life.
PLTW uses a four-year sequence of courses and labs that include several areas of engineering—structural, civil, mechanical, and electrical—giving students a taste of each discipline. Students take courses such as Introduction to Engineering, Principles of Engineering, and Digital Electronics, and use software including MD Solids, Robopro, Westpoint Bridge Design, Revit, and Inventor to design and model projects. The classes are challenging. For example, in the first assignment in the Principles of Engineering class, students are asked to do the following:
Design and build a modifiable device that will launch a ping pong ball into a ten-inch bowl with 100 percent accuracy. On launch day, the distance will be varied by the instructor within a range of five to fifteen feet.
Projects like this challenge students to apply the skills they are learning in other classes to solve problems. Teachers and students report they are learning a great deal in the PLTW curriculum and are noticing the difference PLTW is making in the learning environment and energy at their schools.
A grant fund at Kansas City’s Metropolitan Community College Foundation helps local schools implement the curriculum, train teachers, and connect with employers. Funds come from the Kauffman Foundation and other locally based companies including: Black & Veatch, Burns & McDonnell, Cerner Corporation, Sprint Foundation, and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Foundation. Some 4,600 students in more than forty middle and high schools in metropolitan Kansas City benefit from Project Lead the Way classes.
Attesting to those benefits are a Kansas City area teacher and two students, whose insights follow:
Stephen T. Schlutow, PLTW Teacher, Ruskin High School
As a teacher, I have noticed that PLTW strengthens the standard school curriculum for students who wish to pursue their studies in the engineering field. This program has a real-world, project-based curriculum that complements math and science core courses by allowing students to create projects utilizing knowledge learned in both core courses and in PLTW. In other words, PLTW helps answer the question most commonly asked by students: "Why do I need to know this, and when will I ever use it?" Being a math/physics/PLTW teacher, I get to experience both sides of the curriculum with the students; PLTW students make connections more quickly.
During the previous school year, a visiting engineering professor from Missouri University of Science and Technology visited our classroom and was amazed to discover that as freshmen, students were doing the same bridge truss work assigned to college students in Statics and Strength of Materials courses at the university. Knowing that has been an incredible motivator for my students.
Danielle and Dominique Roe, PLTW Students, 10th Grade, Ruskin High School
As students, we have learned how to apply our math and physics skills to a project that uses skills and knowledge learned in our algebra, geometry, and freshman physics courses. When we built our ping pong ball launcher, we used physics and trigonometric concepts; we were able to calculate the velocity of the object at any point in time during its flight by the initial angle of launch and the distance traveled. These principles are continued in the Introduction of Statics and Mechanics of Materials, which incorporates algebra and trigonometric concepts to develop vector and moment equations. These equations are used to calculate various forces that are being applied to beams and the stress and strain within the beam. We found that MD Solid software can perform the same task in a matter of seconds! Other topics in PLTW are statistics and reliability, small machines, and the construction of a marble sorter utilizing Fischertechnick material and Robopro software, in which students write the program.
In our IED class, we are learning how to make 3D sketches using Inventor software. Our first project is to design a puzzle cube. Our next project will be the reverse engineering of a particular object. We will have to take it apart, measure it, and design it using Inventor.
PLTW has made a dramatic difference for us and others in our classes. We have learned how to work through problems and to work cooperatively with other people.
