PEARISBURG -- Sometimes, home schooling is anything but.

Take Jeff and Charlene Long of Pearisburg, who home school their children, Chris, 16, and Erin, 15. About five years ago, they visited nearly 30 states during a six-week field trip.

"Pretty much anything's a field trip," Charlene Long said. "Some people take vacations, we take field trips."

They had been playing a board game involving attractions in various states, Jeff Long recalled, and got to talking about some they would like to see.

"And all of a sudden, we were talking about 'Let's go do some of these things,' " he said. "I don't know why some people think home-schoolers are home-bound."

Everybody got to pick their top 10 favorites, Charlene Long said. "But I didn't realize what some of the first choices would be. Chris' first choice was Alcatraz, and Erin's first choice was the Mall of America."

In May, Chris and Erin will be making another trip, to Indianapolis to compete in the 57th Intel International Science & Engineering Fair. This is the world's largest pre-college science celebration, with more than 1,400 students from more than 40 countries competing for scholarships, tuition grants, internships and a grand prize of a $50,000 college scholarship.

They won those trips early this month by becoming the first siblings to be judged grand award winners at the Blue Ridge Highlands Regional Science Fair at New River Community College in Dublin.

"This has never happened before," Don Linzey, science fair director, said in announcing the results March 4. Linzey has been involved with the fair throughout its 15-year history.

Erin's project involved testing two water sources along the Appalachian Trail to find how safe they were and whether iodine would get rid of three forms of bacteria in the samples.

"And I found that the iodine does work," she said.

Chris entered a working prototype of a hard-surface "sailing" vehicle he had designed and engineered. He had competed in last year's fair with a scale model.

The vehicle might be described as a sailboat on wheels using wings instead of sails. Next year, he hopes to be testing the "land sailer" itself and seeing what wing angle gets the best speed.

Erin's project, the first she entered, also won first place in the senior microbiology category along with special awards from the Blacksburg chapter of the American Association of University Women, Association for Women Geoscientists, Mount Tabor Ruritan Club and Water Environmental Federation.

Chris, whose project took first in senior engineering, also won awards from the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, National Society of Professional Engineers, Air Force, and Yale Science and Engineering Association. Both won U.S. Army Awards.

The regional grand awards qualify them and their advisers for the trip to Indianapolis and possibly more awards for the May 7-13 international competition. Erin's adviser has a conflict, so her mother will accompany her.

It is unusual for a home school student to win the fair's grand award. More often, the winners are students who commute for half-day classes at the Southwest Virginia Governor's School in Pulaski County. Nine of the 13 first-place winners in senior science categories this year were Governor's School students, as were 15 of the 18 second- and third-place winners.

For the first time this year, Erin and Chris are taking a limited number of high school classes in the Giles County system -- algebra, Spanish and a computer course for Erin and drafting and pre-engineering classes at the county's technical center for Chris. They are both back home each day by 11:15 a.m.

"Come home after school and do more school," Erin said.

Home school laws and procedures vary from state to state, and even county to county, Charlene Long said. Giles has a partial-enrollment option, which is how Chris and Erin now attend a few classes. The policy allows them to participate in all extracurricular activities except sports.

Chris hopes to be accepted for the Governor's School next year and to study engineering in college. Erin wants to pursue microbiology.

Most students enter the science fair representing school divisions. Chris and Erin were sponsored by Home Educators of the New River Valley.

"I think we have enough activities," said Erin, who is involved in some at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints the family attends in Pembroke. Chris recently achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

"I like being able to pick what I'm going to learn, not having to go with the lesson plan," Erin said. "Missing out on school? We've had more than most people."

Their schooling was structured more like a classroom when Erin and Chris were younger. Their father, who works at Appalachian Power's steam-generating plant at Glyn Lyn, taught them a unit on electricity, but Charlene Long does most of the teaching.

By now, she said, she sees herself more as a facilitator, putting the kids in touch with an art teacher here, a retired engineer there, whatever they need for their studies at the time.

She and Jeff Long were high school sweethearts and have been married for 26 years. Both are products of traditional schools. They first considered home schooling when they found Chris had a reading problem they worried might not be sufficiently addressed in a regular classroom.

"It was a pretty hard decision," Charlene said. "But I have never regretted it, ever."

Why home schooling? "Lots of different reasons, not just one," she said. "You will find as many reasons to home school as there are home-schoolers."

Issues like what to wear all went away, Jeff Long said. "It was a more relaxed atmosphere," he said. "It promotes a lot of unity in the family. Of course, a lot of stress, too."

Charlene Long said they can cover a school day in less than four hours, since they do not have class changes and other distractions. "It takes you less time to get more done," she said.

Charlene Long has a business degree and worked as a project manager at Virginia Tech. Now, she said, the kids are her project.

"I'm pretty mean. I'm pretty hard on them," she said with a smile. Even a snow day or power failure does not mean a day off for them. "There are still things we can do," she said.

"We just finished a huge unit on World War II," she said, which included trips to the George Marshall International Center at Lexington and the D-Day Memorial at Bedford.

"We have some great opportunities to travel," she said. Stops have also included Williamsburg and Jamestown. "Of course, Virginia's a wonderful place to study history."