FAIRPORT HARBOR, Ohio -- Domenic Paolo, Fairport Harbor's superintendent of schools, was tutoring an expelled student last year. Knowing Paolo loves to fish, the student made him a fishing lure on the office's 3-D printer.
Paolo loved the lure. "It was out-fishing my other lures," he said. "With 22 cents of plastic, he made a lure better than ones I'd paid $10, $12 for."
The result is a new student program called Hooked on Education. Since September, some 36 students at Fairport Harding High School who'd struggled in traditional classroom are spending most of their day researching, designing, printing and painting lures.
During the fall, they also spent up to three days a week testing commercial lures on nearby Lake Erie aboard the Top Flight, a charter boat skippered by Dave Hall of Grand River. Students caught enough perch, walleye and steelhead trout to feed about 230 locals recently in a free fish fry at the Fairport Senior Center.
You might think they loved spending school days fishing and eating their catches, but most of the students say they struggled with sea-sickness. And some don't even like fish.
"I like chicken better," says Christina Garcia-Hernandez.
But the students praise Hooked on Education anyway, as a way to learn by doing.
"It's a lot of fun," says student Brianna Manross, whose father, Tim, is Fairport Harbor's mayor. Brianna says the program is educational, too. "We get to learn a lot of real-life skills."
Fairport Harding launched the program with $363,000 from the Ohio Department of Education for 3-D printers, laptops, a test tank and more. The students do most of their traditional academics in this class.
For science, they've researched Erie's waters and fish. For math, they've analyzed the "dive curve" of cast lures and measured their basement headquarters to order furniture. For English, they've written research reports and a newspaper called the "Weekly Catch."
Tyler Spaid says reading and writing seem more relevant now. "Upstairs we'd read a book and do a report. Down here, we write about our research."
Downstairs, students can also talk while they work, as many grownups do. "You broke my computer!" Aaron Halstead said the other day to his kid brother, Eric, when Aaron's screen froze awhile.
Jerry Hites, one of the program's four teachers, says busy students are good students. "There've been no discipline issues. They're all getting their work done."
The students have begun to embellish blank commercial lures and sell them. They hope to offer them soon on their website, hookedfhs.com.
In January, they hope to showcase fully original lures at the Cleveland Outdoor Adventure Show at the I-X Center. By June, they hope to find a manufacturer for the lures. They want to sell them on line and at Painesville's Harbor Bait and Tackle.
Superintendent Paolo's already hooked. "I've been an administrator for 30 years," he says, "and this is the most exciting educational opportunity I've ever encountered."