COLUMN: Student 'problem-solving' team works toward downtown Wi-Fi access

For the very first time ever, LaRue County Middle School has formed a Community Problem Solving Team. Community Problem Solving provides one of the most significant learning experiences available to students confronting real-life problems. It’s also about students generating and developing a sense of environmental and community awareness.  
By being involved in community problem solving, students learn how to take leadership roles, ask questions and solve problems in a reasonable, equitable fashion where everyone in the community can benefit. Doris Jean Holleran and Tom Rossi are coaching the LCMS Community Problem Solving Team which consists of seventh, eighth and ninth graders.
After students generated several problems that face Hodgenville and LaRue County, they decided on accessibility as their area of concern. Students generated challenges in our community dealing with all types of accessibility.  Since the LaRue County school system has initiated the Laptops of LaRue program and provided laptops for every high school student, the CmPS students decided that their underlying problem was that some students do not have Internet access to use their laptops when they are away from school. The students decided that their plan of action would be to provide Wi-Fi access in the downtown area of Hodgenville around the square. This would not only benefit students with laptops, but it would greatly enhance tourism and the economy of downtown businesses. Tourists would be able to access information about our community on their laptops, cell phones, eReaders and other devices if Wi-Fi were provided for the downtown area. Students feel that the downtown area would be an ideal informational access point or “hotspot” for Internet access.
CmPS students brainstormed to come up with an acronym for their project. They decided on Project SMART (Share More Accessibility – Route Technology).
Students have talked with several business owners in the downtown area about Project SMART.
If you are interested in helping with or supporting Project SMART, contact Doris Jean Holleran at LaRue County Middle School.