Last month, one Thomas County Middle School science teacher was one of the 25 educators in Georgia to be awarded the Don Cargill STEM Scholar Award for his work with students in designing a wheelchair for dogs. 

Ben Huntzinger, a sixth grade science teacher, said that the class was called Project Lead The Way, which is primarily used to get students involved in the engineering branch of science. 

“This class is called Project Lead The Way, we call it PLTW, and it’s what the science teachers teach instead of reading class at the middle school,” Huntzinger said. “It’s a state-wide implemented course; it gets kids in science involved in engineering.”

With a different focus for each grade, Huntzinger said that the focus of his 9-week course was orthotics. Originally, the students involved set the task of developing a foot orthotic for an individual with cerebral palsy before Huntzinger had a different idea. 

“When I got introduced to Project Lead The Way, one of the first projects was to construct a foot orthotic device for someone with cerebral palsy,” he said. “I would get a group of students to do that and I thought, man, it sure would be a lot more fun for these kids if we built a dog wheelchair instead of a foot orthotic.”

Getting the students to begin development over the 9-weeks, Huntzinger took their finished design and submitted it for the award, laying out the needed PVC hardware required to make this design a reality. 

“I submitted to what’s called the Don Cargill award, and weeks, months, later, they got back to me and said ‘you win,’” he said. 

Awarded $500 to use in his classroom, the students of the course, with Huntzinger’s guidance, were able to create a prototype of the dog wheelchair, as well as a universal adapter. 

“Every size of dog imaginable, we would make a dog wheelchair for,” he said. 

Huntzinger said receiving the award was amazing and that he, alongside Thomas County’s director of science and superintendent, had gone to the capital to receive it. 

“Myself, Scott Sweeney, the director of science department at Thomas County schools, and Lisa Williams, the superintendent, we all went to the capital and received the award together,” he said. 

Huntzinger said that he and Forrest Love, a Cross Creek Elementary teacher, were two of the 25 educators in Georgia to receive the award 

Huntzinger said that the project really encouraged teamwork and fellowship amongst the students, as well as giving them something to really put their hands on and learn with, something he thinks could open doors in their lives for later careers. 

“It’s something that kids can really grab a hold of,” he said. “All the kids are crazy about animals in the 6th grade versus a foot orthotic device. It benefits these kids, because it’s not just a school thing, it’s something like where they’re like ‘oh wow.’ I mean, some of these kids have never swung a hammer, they’ve never tuned up a screwdriver, and now they’re building a wheelchair for a dog.”