Students explore flight with wooden planes

By: Adam Rollins, Staff Writer
Posted 3/29/21

Paper airplanes? Too easy. Students at Wright City Middle School make their planes using computer-aided modeling and hand-carved balsa wood.

Or at least that’s how students in Project Lead …

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Students explore flight with wooden planes

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Paper airplanes? Too easy. Students at Wright City Middle School make their planes using computer-aided modeling and hand-carved balsa wood.

Or at least that’s how students in Project Lead The Way do it. PLTW, a series of courses in middle and high school, introduces students to the basic principles of engineering. Designing, building and testing wooden planes that functionally glide — and learning about how they glide — is the culminating project of the program’s first level.

“It was kind of hard ... but it was also really cool to see something you made on  digital, to see it in person and fly it in person,” said seventh grader Quinn Schnarre. The process involved digital design, simulated flights, cutting wood, assembling, and then two days of testing and trouble shooting.

“On the final day, you could say wow, I went from having nothing, to some stuff on the computer, to having a plane that could fly,” added classmate Grant Lehmen. “It’s not going to be perfect when you make it, compared to what it would be online, but we were trying to optimize the plane to fly as well as it could.”

The students said this project was one of the ways that PLTW has shown them that the math and science they’re learning about can be used for some really cool stuff. The class is very hands-on and engaging, Quinn said, especially for students who are already interested in science or engineering.

Other hands-on projects have included designing medical braces, creating puzzle cubes, and drawing blueprints. In their second semester, students are designing shipping container homes.

Teacher Matthew Crowe said all of the projects in PLTW are aimed at getting students ready to pursue 21st-century careers.

“With flight and space specifically, there’s a substantial presence of aerospace jobs in the metro area. By exposing some of these kids early, they’re going to know sooner if that’s something they’re going to pursue,” Crowe commented.

The engineering process, effective collaboration, and solving problems under tight constraints are all learning targets in the class, Crowe said. He commented that the hands-on approach is so different from what many students are used to, that even those who struggle to get engaged with math and science classes are motivated to participate.

A big help for the PLTW class is how far technology has come in providing resources for learning, Crowe added. Things like each student having a laptop and access to web-based flight simulators were just a dream when he graduated in the ’90s.

Middle School Principal David Williams said moving from textbook learning to real-world application has been an increased focus for schools in Wright City since PLTW was introduced about five years ago.

“We really focus here on the authentic application of knowledge and skills. That’s one of the things I really love about this class and these projects,” commented Williams. “You have engagement with real academic rigor ... and they’re doing work that closely resembles what engineering professionals would actually do in their field.”

Wright City Middle School, Project Lead The Way

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