Six Franklin Area High School students have qualified to attend the Academic Games Tournament in Knoxville, Tennessee.
James Ivell, teacher for the students gifted group, informed the Franklin School Board earlier this week that the students who will travel to the April 22-25 tournament are seniors Christina Bullard, Adam Luther, Robbie Moffitt and Alyssa Shick; junior Carlito Motter; and sophomore Kaizer Kadylak.
According to the Academic Games Leagues of America, the organization “provides a series of Academic Games competitions throughout the nation culminating in the AGLOA National Tournament in late spring each year.
Two of Franklin’s contestants, Shick and Luther, were introduced to the board by Ivell.
Shick told the board that she has been competing since kindergarten and is “excited” to attend and proud to represent the school.
She said the opportunity to compete at nationals has been her “best experience,” and the games are a “major influence” in her decision to become a history major.
Luther said he has been in the gifted group since eighth grade and his “favorite” game is linguistics. He plans to study speech pathology in college.
Both students said the games are competitive, much like sports.
Student presentations
The board saw a pair of presentations from Sandycreek Elementary School students.
The club, which was founded in January, meets after school and offers hands-on opportunities to work with technologies that create and build. Upcoming projects will involve robotics and perhaps drones.
“The district is purchasing STEM equipment for each school,” fifth-grade teacher Holly Johnson said.
So far, she said, a large banner/poster printer; a vinyl cutter; a pair of 3D printers; a heat press; and a Norilla, which is a mixed-reality learning platform that bridges physical and virtual worlds, has been purchased for Sandycreek, “and I believe the same for the other schools.”
The first-grade student team of teachers Megan Hiles, Lori Hugar and Teri Sunder showcased a math-based project called 120-day Mystery Project.
“The first-grade goal is to be able to count to 120; so that number was chosen for the mission. Thus, we were saving the 120th day of school, which is the day we held the event.” Hiles said.
Students designated as “secret agents” were tasked with an 11-part mission to find the missing “Zero the Hero.” Some of the elements used in the missions included fingerprinting, bowling, magnifying glasses and invisible ink.
Base 10 counters also were used, giving students experience with addition, subtraction, number sense, decimals, logical thinking, measurements and place value. Each mission contained a code clue, which slowly revealed the location of the missing “Zero the Hero.”
Both Johnson and Hiles, in a later conversation with the newspaper, agreed on the importance of culminating activities as used in the projects, and the continuous application and building of these skills as essential to student preparation.
Acting Superintendent Pat Gavin thanked all the students for their presentations.
”We have a lot of talent here in the district and it is impressive to see some of it tonight,” he said.
