Education for real world

Fourteen-year-olds Tristin Anglin, Jasmine Hiss and Garrett Callison sat together in math class one day in late August, their eyes darting between each other and their laptop screens.

The task at hand: planning a wedding. After placing calls to Fazoli’s, Ruby Tuesday and Carlos O’Kelly’s, the students had to determine the most affordable caterer for an engaged couple they had met in person.

It was a typical day in Columbia City’s Eagle Tech Academy, which opened this fall with more than 100 freshmen.

At Eagle Tech, all learning is project-based. So by the time Callison, Hiss and Anglin finish their wedding planning, they’ll know just how many people they can feed and the equations they’ll need to make the calculations.