FAIRMONT — The U.S. Department of Energy’s “Real World Design Challenge” is giving West Virginia high school students the opportunity to solve a real-world problem using science and technology.

Todd Ensign, state coordinator for the competition, said this is the second year of the Real World Design Challenge. West Virginia, participating for the first time, is one of 25 states competing to send a team of students and their teacher to Washington, D.C., for the national challenge in March, which is an all expense paid trip.

In order for West Virginia to join the Real World Design Challenge, Gov. Joe Manchin had to agree that the state would be a participant.

“We want to commend and thank Gov. Manchin for accepting the challenge,” Ensign said.

“I am pleased to have our state join this creative collaboration of education and business professionals,” Manchin said in a press release.

“Any time we are able to introduce a new challenge to our young people that will enhance their learning and understanding of science, mathematics and high technology, brings success to the student and our state as as whole. I believe strongly in providing a seamless education system for our younger generations, and this will help us reach that goal.”

The contest is for students currently enrolled in grades 9 through 12 in a state that’s competing. The challenge is cosponsored by several agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, Parametric Technology Corp., NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration.

“They have basically an airplane that has the tail removed, and so the teams are designing a new tail for this airplane,” Ensign said of the students’ task.

He said teams create their design using a 3-D computer design software, provided free by Parametric Technology Corp., and then test the aerodynamics of it with virtual wind tunnel software. They put together an engineering proposal describing their process and what they learned, and this report is judged.

The students are encouraged to select a mentor, who can collaborate with them via an online portal called Windchill as they design their tail section, Ensign said.

Ensign runs the Educator Resource Center at the NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V;) Facility in Fairmont. He explained that the role of the center is to help increase the number of students interested in pursuing an education and career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM.

“What this challenge does is to help us fulfill that goal ... (and) provide students with an engaging real-world problem that’s open-ended and there’s not one right answer,” Ensign said. “It utilizes contemporary engineering tools. They’ll come out of this with real skills that can be applied directly into the field.”

He has been promoting the competition, getting teams enrolled, and coordinating the judges and mentors. In the future, the Educator Resource Center will provide free training to schools on the software the teams use in the challenge.

In West Virginia, 10 teams have registered. Judges from the NASA IV&V; Facility and the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Morgantown will select one lucky team to move on to the national competition, Ensign said.

The state winner will be announced on Feb. 12. Gov. Manchin will hold the final ceremony and present the trophy to the winning team.

“I anticipate that the contest is going to grow at a very quick pace,” Ensign said.

“We are very excited to be involved in this challenge. We look forward to attending the national challenge.”

Don Ferguson, research engineer in NETL’s Energy System Dynamics Focus Area, said NETL’s role in the Real World Design Challenge is to assist with the judging. Ferguson and Kurt Gerdes will be the two judges from NETL, and several researchers have also offered to be mentors in the program.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Ferguson said. “The software manufacturer is giving (the students) real-life software — software that is used throughout industry — to utilize for this project. So they’re getting real-world experience in this design competition.”

He said the teams have to come up with several conceptual designs and virtually test them. What the students are doing is directly applicable to research being conducted throughout the United States.

According to Ferguson, the teams from this area that have entered the statewide competition include students from Philip Barbour High School in Philippi and Randolph Technical Center in Elkins.

“The idea is to train the next generation workforce,” he said. “It’s focusing on the STEM standards in the school system to help push math, science, technology and engineering.”

The June Harless Center for Rural Educational Research and Development at Marshall University is also providing support for the challenge.

Executive director Stan Maynard said the center, established in 2001, was created in memory of June Harless, the late wife of James “Buck” Harless. The organization focuses on school reform and works with rural schools that are struggling and interested in innovative, 21st century-related skills.

Marshall is in the beginning stages of developing a STEM high school, which is being modeled after Metro High School that is affiliated with Ohio State University, Maynard said. Marshall’s “model high school” is anticipated for completion in the fall of 2011.

Because of this project, the June Harless Center felt that the Real World Design Challenge was a fitting activity to be involved in, he said.

“We’re just very excited to work with NASA because it’s going to help us with our STEM high school in Marshall down the road in the future,” Maynard said. “We’re delighted to be a part of this. I think it has a lot of short-term and long-term implications for STEM courses or projects in the future.”

He said the main idea behind this challenge of designing an airplane component is to get the students excited and motivated. This activity utilizes a great deal of technology, team-building and problem-solving.

“That project-based learning seems to really motivate students of this generation who are very technologically literate and love to be challenged by things that a textbook or a worksheet cannot do,” Maynard said. “When we talk about STEM, it kind of encapsulates all of those terms into one particular project.”

The June Harless Center is assisting NASA with the logistics of the Real World Design Challenge and has contacted teachers to encourage them to get involved. Ultimately, the center wants to help the competition become an annual activity and spread the word throughout the state so more students from various regions can benefit from it.

E-mail Jessica Borders at jborders@timeswv.com.