ODU PLAYS HOST TO TEACHERS FROM EIGHT STATES, LEARNING INNOVATIVE ENGINEERING PREPARATION CURRICULUM

Twenty-five math and science teachers from more than a half-dozen states are spending the last two weeks of July learning how to teach the innovative Project Lead The Way curriculum, designed to prepare high school students for the challenge of university engineering courses.

Old Dominion University is Virginia's official university affiliate for the program, organized by Project Lead The Way, a national, not-for-profit educational program that helps give middle and high school students the rigorous ground-level education they need to develop strong backgrounds in science and engineering.

Started a decade ago, the Project Lead The Way program had modest expectations. Ten years later, the program is run in all 50 states, and has more than 250,000 kids enrolled nationwide. It's run in 51 schools throughout Virginia.

"It's a phenomenal success," said Marcie Gerdin, perations manager for ODU's Virginia Applied Technology and Professional Development Center, and director of Project Lead The Way Outreach in the state.

In these two weeks, the teachers - from Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Washington, D.C. and Virginia - will be instructed on the Project Lead The Way curriculum.

The goals for Project Lead The Way are to increase the number of people who pursue engineering in two- and four-year post-secondary programs, reduce the future college attrition rate in the academically challenging programs, and contribute to the nation's prosperity by ultimately producing more engineers.

Gerdin said the benefits of the program are obvious - for the students, and for all engineering programs.