FIRST and PLTW

[Martinez]

"Engineering Design and Development - An engineering research course in which students work in teams to research, design and construct a solution to an open-ended engineering problem. Students apply principles developed in the four preceding courses. They must present progress reports, submit a final written report and defend their solutions to a panel of outside reviewers."

Ok, that was taken from RIT's website. Some of you may know I'm trying to create a team in the Owego Area. Last week, I was talking to a Owego Middle School teacher and he said "we have the full support of Project Lead the Way." At the time, I didn't really understand what he ment but while at FLR, I heard some talk that RIT was encouraging High Schools to use FIRST as a part of their 5th course.

I took the initial PLTW course back in High School so know what the program is. However, after searching the web I have found no direct links between FIRST and PLTW.

Are there any teams out there using FIRST as a part of PLTW?
Are new teams being created coming originally out of PLTW?
Am I just delusional and misunderstood what the teacher was talking about?

I have a meeting with some Lockheed Execs on Wednesday and was going to mention this. However, I don't want to go in there and just be duuuuuuh. Aside from the obvious talking to the teacher again, if anyone in the FIRST community knows anything about what I'm talking about could post here, it would be apreachated.