2 weeks Ago By Heath Harrison
Published 12:00 am Saturday, April 19, 2025 By Heath Harrison Holly Stone, Project Lead the Way instructor for Collins Career Technical Center, interviews two students before their egg is dropped during the design challenge at Ironton Middle School on Wednesday. (Heath Harrison | The Ironton Tribune) Members of the Ironton Fire Department assisted with the Project lead the way Egg Drop Challenge at Ironton Middle School on Wednesday. (Heath Harrison | The Ironton Tribune) Students hand their design projects off to members of the Ironton Fire Department to be dropped during the design challenge at Ironton Middle School on Wednesday.
(Heath Harrison | The Ironton Tribune) Holly Stone, Project Lead the Way instructor for Collins Career Technical Center speaks to students during the Egg Drop Challenge at Ironton Middle School on Wednesday. (Heath Harrison | The Ironton Tribune) Members of the Ironton Fire Department assisted with the Project lead the way Egg Drop Challenge at Ironton Middle School on Wednesday. (Heath Harrison | The Ironton Tribune) Members of the Ironton Fire Department assisted with the Project lead the way Egg Drop Challenge at Ironton Middle School on Wednesday.
(Heath Harrison | The Ironton Tribune) PLTW students take part in Egg Drop Challenge “Fire in the hole!” Holly Stone called out to the Ironton Fire Department crew in their ladder truck set up on the parking lot of Ironton Middle School. Each time, upon getting the signal, they dropped a container, with an egg as cargo, as students gathered below watched it make the 100-foot trip to the ground. Stone, the gateway instructor and satellite educator for Project Lead the Way classes through Collins Career Technical Center, said the containers were the result of a design project for students at Ironton and Rock Hill middle schools.
The seventh and eight graders were tasked with creating a container for the eggs to use in the challenge. “The goal is to save the egg, and they get extra points for hang time,” she said, noting that the works are judged on the duration of the trip. Stone said this was the second year for the challenge and the Ironton Fire Department also assisted last year.
She said there were certain criteria and restrictions students had to follow in their design, which were devised by the eighth grade students. Som e of the containers, on their way down, got caught in a nearby tree, due to the wind. But the fire department was able to use the truck to retrieve them.
Stone said Project Lead the Way has classes in seventh and eighth grades in the middle schools, and is expanding to sixth graders. “ And then, we have them all the way through high school,” she said of the STEM program, teaching science, technology, engineering and medical courses at most of the county’s districts. She said the challenge had many benefits.
“It’s an engineering design project,” she said. “They learn about physics. And it’s fun!”.
