Project in a box
at Archbishop Ryan

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

In 1994, Sister Alice Hess was invited to join several other educators from across the country at a Dartmouth College workshop on how to teach a six-step method of problem-solving.
Since that time, the Archbishop Ryan High School teacher has challenged her senior calculus and advanced-placement statistics students to create real-world applications of what they’ve learned all year, culminating in PowerPoint presentations before judges and engineers from companies like Lockheed Martin, Crown Cork & Seal, and ARKEMA.
The latest presentation was held on May 27. The Ryan classes divided into eight small groups that were charged as companies to come up with a container product of their choice with a given volume.
The students researched materials, costs and the marketability of their projects, which included a case to transport electronic items like iPods and game systems, and also a contact-lens case that, in addition to storing lenses, would automatically fill with a saline solution.
For many students, the brainstorming sessions produced ideas for products they might buy themselves.
For instance, three of the four members of the A New Eye-dea group wore contact lenses and had problems with their current cases. Janina Lamb’s father has diabetes and travels regularly, inspiring her team to create an insulin insulator that would safely store syringes, testing devices and insulin, keeping it cold.
Steve Arbiz, a 1983 Ryan grad and supervising civil/highway engineer with Princeton-based Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, was one of the project judges.
Arbiz and co-worker and Ryan grad Mike Hemlinger attended a career day at the school about eight years ago and met Sister Alice, who also heads the Future Engineers Club at the high school. She invited them to sit on the review board with other engineers.
"We’ve participated ever since as reviewers. Over the years, and including this year, I’m very impressed with how all of the students are able to grasp the problem-solving and presentation process in the short time that is allotted to them," Arbiz said.
He is equally impressed with the job their teacher does to prepare them — brainstorming for ideas, identifying a problem, using a systematic way of developing a solution and then presenting their findings.
"These are the skills that any engineering student would be using throughout their college program, and it is a great way of getting the students prepared for the next step," Arbiz said.
All of the students, however, aren’t necessarily future engineers and have a variety of interests. Lamb won an honorable mention in the Dad Vail Regatta poster contest and Chris Wilk is an All-Catholic football player, said longtime Ryan religion teacher Ed Lawrence.
"It’s good to see (the students) experiencing everything," Lawrence said.
Some of Hess’ students are also members of Ryan’s Mathletes team. She coaches the squad of math students, which recently competed in an archdiocesan tournament and won the championship.
"The team went up against some teams this year that were possibly more talented, but the Ryan team wanted to be champions, had the self-discipline to work hard to make it happen and rendered themselves eminently coachable," Sister Alice said. "They are a coach’s delight."
Mike Hemlinger was impressed with how far Ryan and its students have come since his time at the school in the early ’80s.
"Calculus was not even offered in the curriculum at that time," he said. ªª
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com