VIDEO: Project Lead the Way benefits students

The Corbin Independent School System is leading the way through a specialized curriculum that helps prepare students for careers in engineering – a field where experts say the nation’s education system has failed to produce enough promising talent.

During the monthly membership luncheon of the Corbin Chamber of Commerce Tuesday, Darrell Horn, an instructor at the Corbin Area Technology Center, discussed Project Lead the Way; a nationwide program that now has participating schools in all 50 states. The Center offers curriculum to its students through

Project Lead the Way as does nearby Corbin High School and Corbin Middle School. The high school is one of only five in Kentucky offering the program.

Locally, Project Lead the Way courses have been offered for three years, but they began in 12 New York state high schools in 1997. Today, 3,000 schools nationwide offer the program.
During a video presentation to Chamber members, Project Lead the Way officials noted that America’s schools only produce about 84,000 engineers a year compared to China with about 300,000. Horn said this is not nearly enough to satisfy the need in the field.

He said the program challenges students in several different ways: through team projects, relevant and practical mathematical exercises, realistic problem solving, and other methods.

“One of the things I emphasize in my classroom is that it doesn’t matter how crazy an idea may seem. It is not wrong,” Horn said. “I just don’t give my students an assignment and tell them what to do. I don’t want them to just regurgitate to me an answer. I want them to add to it.”

Horn noted that students can earn college credit with many participating universities through the program, and some have even made money-selling patents to companies who want to produce innovative technological solutions. He gave the example of a New York student that sold a patent for technology that allowed a car to be started simply by dialing a number into a cell phone. She made over $1 million.

Horn said Corbin area schools are currently offering four curriculum areas in Project Lead the Way, starting from eighth grade on through high school. Students have the opportunity to use current technology and are taught by teachers who have gone through a rigorous training program so that local Lead the Way courses at Corbin High and the Technology Center are certified.

Horn was accompanied by Corbin teacher Roy Taylor who talked about some of the projects he worked on with his students.

Both Taylor and Horn are engineers by training who have opted to go into the education field. Horn noted that many people with engineering degrees branch out into other areas.