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County-wide STEM Design Contest WINNERS and State Finalists!!
Pennsylvania agriculture contributes $132.5 billion to our state economy annually and supports more than 593,600 jobs, paying wages of $32.8 billion. Did you know that farmers use robots to help them? “High-tech Farming” is important especially as our population grows and food demand increases. Our teams of 8th grade students were challenged to help our Pennsylvania farmers by creating an agricultural robot or other type of “high-tech farming” equipment that they could use.
The 8th-grade students created detailed and innovative environmental agency-based creations. This included producing extensive engineering journals and blueprints, as well as preparing presentations for the judges based on their innovations.
Out of 28 middle school teams across the county, our team, 'The Garden Girls' and their 'Garden Guardian' won first place! The girls qualified for the state competition, which was held in Harrisburg in May. The girls earned excellent scores, and great feedback from the judges. While they did not place at the state level, they learned a lot and were honored to have competed at that level.
Congratulations to Samantha, Ella, and Adolynn!
Also, a big congratulations to our other two teams as well, the 'Green Beans' (Seth, Ian, and Manny) and the 'A.C.E.S' (Cole and Elias) for both teams ranking in the TOP 10!🙌
Unless Contest State Finalists!
The Unless Contest through the Philadelphia Zoo
I am very proud of all my sixth-grade student teams who completed project submissions for the 2023-2024 Unless Contest. These agency-based awareness projects included video games made on Skratch to bring awarness to an endangered species, creative card games, books, a water bottle sticker campaign, and a trash clean-up poster campaign.
Aria and Vienna created an agency-based project initiative called R.E.S.C.U.E. (Rodrigues Education Support and Conservation Efforts). After researching the endangered species, the Rodrigues Fruit Bat, these students provided a notable level of research, depth of knowledge, and creativity that stood out amongst the other submissions for this contest. I am proud to share that they were selected as finalists for this competition out of 800 student entries! Aria and Vienna created original picture books and outreach plans, demonstrating their change agency initiative, which were selected to be featured during the celebration! The girls were placed in the ‘top 5’ of the contest at the awards ceremony on Thursday, May 16th at the Philadelphia Zoo.
Congratulations to these change agents and all the student teams!
Future City Winners!
Future City is a hands-on cross-curricular educational program that brings STEM to life for students in grades 6 through 8th grades. This is our second time competing in this global agency-based challenge! Using the Engineering Design Process and project management skills, students showcased their solutions to a city-wide sustainability issue. This year's challenge asked students to address climate change mitigation effort in their newly created and futuristic city, along with the bonus of designing features that 'electrify the future'! Team website: https://futurecity.org/
Our team created their D.O.M.E.: 'District of Manipulating Electricity' to generate electricity from harvesting lightning! Their dome was built to conduct the energy from the lightning throughout the frame, which would then run to a homemade transducer! It also features a magnetic monorail and 4 other mini domes that highlight innovative solutions to the challenge. The team also submitted a lengthy and detailed essay, as well as blueprints, and pictures of the build. The team earned high scores and their award also included $150 in prize earnings! Well done 8th grade!! We are proud of you! If you are interested in reading more, check out their essay!
Successful Project Green School Contest Submissions!
New contest for this year: SVMS’s Gifted fifth and sixth grade gifted teams submitted their final proposals, budget, and designs for outdoor learning classroom/redesigned spaces through a competition called, ‘Project
Green Schools’! https://projectgreenschools.org/
Project Green Schools challenges schools across the country to develop and implement a meaningful outdoor classroom and learning spaces. Students research, innovate, plan, and build a prototype that is submitted towards awards, including one grand prize to further enhance an existing space. Students applied the STEM/Engineering and Design Standards, including Gifted standards to reimagine new methods according to 13 Green Pathways, such as energy, land use, waste management, water, green living and consumerism, transportation, and more! Dr. Schucker spoke on behalf of this project at both the state and national gifted conferences (PAGE and NAGC), sharing more about the students' progress with the curriculum.
While we were not selected as finalists for this competition, I was VERY proud of the work that the students completed for this competition! Well done to these change agents: Tyler, Lilly, Emily, Chloe, Carson, Sheamus, and Dominic!
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