Building engineers

Students at West Valley High School are flocking to engineering classes being offered as part of new curriculum that is the first of its kind in the Spokane area.

Project Lead the Way, a national nonprofit organization, provides the curriculum at no charge after teachers are trained. The roots of the new program can be traced to the district’s popular robotics program. Teachers Eric Groshoff and Brad Liberg heard about Project Lead the Way from schools at robotics competitions.

“It’s the top of the line engineering curriculum,” said Groshoff.

The school offers two introduction to engineering classes, an engineering/physics class, and an engineering design and development class for juniors and seniors. More-specialized classes will be added later. “Our goal is to have a four-year approach,” he said.

The idea is to get students, particularly girls, to think about engineering as a career. Often it is hard work to overcome the perception that engineering is for “nerds.” “You have to recruit,” said Liberg. “We want the special-needs kids just as much as the higher-end kids. Any kid can be successful with the Project Lead the Way Curriculum.”

The classes have other benefits. They use science and math, which helps students in those subjects. Students who enroll in Project Lead the Way classes have a more likely chance to attend college and get scholarships, Groshoff said.

During one of Groshoff’s introduction to engineering classes, students were given small blocks of wood to build a three-dimensional puzzle. Students sketched projects on paper, then turned to computers to create a 3D image.

Junior Ashley Bueckers didn’t require much persuading to consider an engineering career. She wants to specialize in mechanical engineering. “I did robotics last year,” she said. “My dad is an engineer.”

Junior Gage Bader is the opposite. He’d never been exposed to engineering before signing up for Groshoff’s class, but liked what he was doing. “I thought it would be interesting, just to be able to make stuff,” he said. “It’s really fun, actually.”

He’s convinced that he wants to be an engineer, but doesn’t know what he wants to specialize in.

It’s that type of attitude Groshoff and Liberg are looking for. They want kids who get excited when faced with an engineering project. “It’s motivating for them and motivating for us,” Groshoff said. “We get to build stuff instead of just talking about it.”

Upperclassmen in the engineering design and development class will do long-term projects. They are researching a number of possibilities, including wind-powered cars and airplane child safety seats. “We’ll select it down to two or three the class will work on throughout the year,” Liberg said.

Even though the engineering program has just started, teachers are working with Eastern Washington University to allow students to get college credit for some of the classes. And they would like to start offering beginning engineering courses in middle school.

The decision to offer the classes came late in the year, forcing the teachers to scramble a bit. Groshoff and Liberg had to take two weeks of training in the summer for each class in order to be certified to teach the curriculum. The district paid for the training. “They really pushed us,” Groshoff said. “It was an 8 to 5 class and we were up until 2 a.m. doing homework.”