Save The Dates
November 4--6, 2009
PLTW Ohio 2009 Fall Conference
Sinclair Community College
Dayton, Ohio
Administrators, Teachers and Business Partners ONLY
(Counselor Conference to be held in 2010)

Centerville Students Sweep Bots Competition

F1 In Schools Competition Winners

Communities respond to need for bioscience workers

PLTW Teacher Tad Douce and PLTW Ohio's State Leader Kathy Sommers receive education awards

Important Policy Change: Digital Electronics is a Required Course.

National PLTW Revamps Course Requirements

PLTW teachers build marble sorter during Summer Training Institute

The national PLTW organization has revamped their course requirements from five courses to four (4) courses. This means that a complete PLTW program now consists of four engineering courses for a minimum of 480 hours over a maximum of four years.

Ohio PLTW programs are required to offer:

Introduction to Engineering
Principles of Engineering
Digital Electronics (DE)
A minimum of one engineering elective

Engineering elective courses are:

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM)
Civil Engineering and Architecture (CEA)
Aerospace Engineering
Biotechnology Engineering
Fuel Cell Technology (Ohio-based course)
Materials Joining Technology (Ohio-based course)
Computational Science and Engineering (Ohio-based course)

Capstone:

Engineering Design and Development

Digital Electronics is NO LONGER an elective in Ohio, but must be taught as one of the foundation courses along with Introduction to Engineering Design and Principles of Engineering.

Those programs established during 2006-2007 not including Digital Electronics in their delivery model are encouraged to include it as implementation moves forward.
All programs beginning implementation in Fall 2008 or after are required to include Digital Electronics in their program of study.
As always, Ohio feels very strongly about the "capstone" course (Engineering Design and Development) and strongly encourages all schools to offer this course. Although PLTW requires only four courses, Ohio encourages that programs offer five courses in the sequence.

If your program is currently fully implemented, i.e. offering five courses, we encourage you to continue to do so. This affords your students the greatest opportunity for articulating to a variety of post-secondary engineering programs. All Ohio PLTW programs are required to offer at least one (1) engineering elective course, however, whenever possible we strongly encourage programs to offer more electives.

If you have questions concerning these changes please feel to contact either the State Affiliate (Deb Lukjanovs) at 614-512-4516 or the Ohio Department of Education (Kathy Sommers) at 614-466-2901.