Project Lead the Way courses at Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School provide students with hands-on learning

The Project Lead the Way (PLTW) courses at Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School give students the opportunity to take additional science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEMM) classes. While CJ students still have their regular STEMM classes, the PLTW engineering courses and the PLTW biomedical science courses are options for electives, giving students opportunities for more in-depth learning.

PLTW is a national program for grades PreK-12. Students engage in hands-on learning and develop knowledge and skills needed for the workforce, such as problem-solving. The first stage is PLTW Launch, where students in PreK-5 tap into their exploratory nature and are encouraged to discover. The next stage, PLTW Gateway, is for students in grades 6-8. Here they are exposed to potential career paths and begin to explore the pathways for PLTW 9-12 courses. In addition to engineering and biomedical science, there is also a computer science pathway.

“All the PLTW courses and the way they’re taught are much more project-based and inquiry-based,” says Meg Draeger, the program director for PLTW at CJ. “So there’s not as much, you know, follow along in this textbook, or this list of content topics, chapter by chapter and you’re learning these specific things.”

The fourth level PLTW engineering course is titled “Engineering, Design and Development.” The second semester is open-ended for students to complete a project.

“The students are challenged to identify a local or it could be a global issue or challenge or problem and then go through the engineering design process to do some research and brainstorm some alternative solutions and come up with, in most cases, just a prototype of some kind of a product or solution or service to meet that need,” Draeger says.

For their project, two CJ seniors, Grace Schaefer and Sam Downing, created an interactive children’s activity for Preschool Promise’s Play on Purpose (POP) Spots. These POP Spots are located across the Dayton area.

Schaefer and Downing worked with the team at Levitt Pavilion to install a set of wind chimes. They chose something musical so that it would fit in with theme of the performance venue. Instead of coming up with just a prototype, they worked with different community partners to bring the idea to life.

“In this case, this project and this team presented a few different design alternatives and then they actually went ahead and designed and constructed the play spot,” Draeger says. “This project was a prime example of in the ideal world, every project in a PLTW course would entail some community involvement or engagement by local employers, where the students learn how to interact with adults and STEM professionals in different fields.”

In addition to interacting with their client, Schaefer and Downing collaborated with an expert on concrete and with the city of Dayton to see what was allowed to be installed at that spot. They partnered with Accro-Cast Corp., a fabricating company, to do the welding of the chimes, which the students got to help with. They also assisted in digging out the site and laying and leveling the concrete. The final product was dubbed “Soar with Music Chimes” because it connected Dayton’s roots through stickers with information on the Wright Brothers and their flights.

“I was really proud to see them navigate through this,” Draeger says. “Sam and Grace were very mature and professional in how they dealt with the folks. I think they learned a lot and I really feel like they represented what a CJ student is really like.”