For a small group of high school students in the Hazelwood School District, the first class of the day isn’t at school, but on a college campus in a large manufacturing laboratory.
Six students, representing Hazelwood Central, Hazelwood East and Hazelwood West high schools, are enrolled in Honors Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), a year-long course in the Project Lead the Way program. The class is held on the campus of St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley and is taught by Carl Fischer, an instructor at the college.
CIM is a specialized engineering course that teaches the fundamentals of computerized manufacturing technology. Students use 3-D computer software to solve design problems; they are challenged to come up with solutions based on the relationship of design, function and materials. They often have to modify their designs, and then use prototype equipment to create models in 3-D.
Steven Moore, a senior at Hazelwood East High, has been in the PLTW program since his junior year. He moved to the district from Illinois as a sophomore and was unaware of the program. His father had been talking to him about a future in engineering, and after reading about PLTW in the school course list, he signed up. Math is his favorite subject, which ties in well with what he is learning through PLTW.
“I’m getting a head start on my college career, my future. I’m just trying to take advantage,” said Moore.
“We do a lot of hands-on types of things, creating things on our own. I’m doing something I like, coming up with codes and programs.”
He enjoys the challenges the class presents.
He said, “Sometimes it gets confusing and you have to make modifications. You have look back to figure out why it’s not working, but I like that.”
Moore wants to study architecture or engineering at Kansas State University.
Students in CIM come from districts throughout North St. Louis County, yet the class is still fairly small, less than 15 students. Three of them are girls.
Brittney Smith-Holden, a senior at Hazelwood East High, joined PLTW as a sophomore. Her first class was Principles of Engineering, and she was the only girl in the class with 19 boys.
“And all the teachers were males,” she said.
She is aware of the difference of being one of a few, but she doesn’t seem to let it discourage her. “Sometimes it makes things harder, but personally I find myself competing,” she said.
PLTW has had a significant impact on her academically.
She said, “I have a way of thinking differently. It has taught me to analyze things, be a better problem solver and a better student.”
She likes CIM for several reasons, one being the smaller class size.
She said, “We have more one-on-one interaction. It’s a lot of helping one another, and it’s almost like a job setting. With Project Lead the Way, you can see where you’ll use these skills in a real job.”
Smith-Holden will attend Missouri University of Science and Technology to study engineering. She is considering the possibility of studying architectural engineering.
Samantha Washburn is a senior at Hazelwood West High. She is the only other girl from the district in the CIM class.
Her most recent project was creating the image of a heart surrounded by flames onto a small, blue plastic block. “I made the design on paper for fun,” said Washburn.
The challenging part of her design is that it has no straight lines. Speaking in terms that make sense to future engineers, she explained, “There are 50 arcs in my design. I plotted the end points on graphing paper and it took three days to write the program.”
Working on a machine that can only be described as a drill in a large box connected to a computer, Washburn wore safety goggles as she set the plastic block in a vice and closed the lid on the machine. Tapping on the computer’s keyboard, and looking back and forth between the drill and her project, she was focused on getting it right. A few times, she stopped and groaned, then went back to the computer, looking intently at a screen of full of numbers, equations and an image of what she was trying to accomplish.
Finally, she got it done. “AH, HA!” she said just loud enough to be heard over the machine’s drill.
Washburn took her time and worked through her trouble to come up with a solution without asking for help from Fischer or any of her classmates.
CIM is her first class in the PLTW program. Her only experience has been physics and calculus, but she said she is “very interested” in engineering.
She is considering attending Missouri University of Science and Technology or the University of North Carolina.
Brian Thompson, assistant principal at Hazelwood Central High School, has been involved with the PLTW program since its beginnings in the district. He summed it up as a program that “provides students with an opportunity for hands-on, intellectual experience. They will learn if engineering and technology is of interest to them. If it is, they will understand what they’ve learned at a higher level and they can apply the concepts of what they learn to other classes.”
At the end of the year, the students in CIM will have earned credits toward high school graduation n and three hours of college credit.