Two sixth-grade students with the Marion County Special Education Cooperative?s Extended Learning Program recently took first place honors at the Kansas University Engineering Expo.
Tori Smith and Nathan Baldwin at Marion Elementary School won first in the Downhill Challenge at the elementary division level for the car they designed, said Sherri Sells, MCSEC ELP facilitator.
?This year 11 students in the MCSEC ELP program from the Marion, Peabody and Goessel districts made projects for KU Expo,? she said.
Another student, Henry Cain, at Peabody-Burns built a car from repurposed materials for the Uphill Challenge.
?He built a motorized car from trash,? she said. ?We had several students building egg drop containers relating to (Sir Isaac) Newton?s three laws of motion.?
Christian Becker, an MES fourth-grader, also built a volcano replica to illustrate these laws, placing at the expo.
?Each year that I have taken students in the ELP program to KU,? she said, ?at least one student has come home with an award in the competitions.
?Last year we swept the elementary division in the sailboat race and the year before we placed first and second in the elementary division of the egg drop.?
Sells said ELP students from Marion County have competed ?very well? with more than 1,000 students from schools across Kansas who attend the KU Engineering Expo.
?I also take students to the Kansas Robotics League tournament in Manhattan each year and we have come home with awards in this competition as well,? she said.
In addition to the ELP product fair, MES fifth- and sixth-grade artwork was on display and the MES musical production ?Joust? featured medieval marvel, complete with jousting knights, damsels, jesters and Merlin.
