Orchard Middle School Students Win Award at STEM-Based Competition, Advance to State Match
Jamie Napier, director of middle school wrote a wonderful piece on middle school math at Orchard on page nine of the October issue of the Silvis Magister. The following is a powerful paragraph from that piece.
“It is incumbent upon a high-quality teacher to motivate a student’s desire to further study mathematics. Simply calling this motivation undersells this talent. As teachers, we must simultaneously motivate and contextualize learning as we inspire the imagination. We will admittedly be imperfect in these lofty tasks; however, Orchard will do great things with a group of talented mathematicians who love children.”
That is exactly what happened on November 11th at Guion Creek Middle School when Orchard’s Lego Robotics Club won the Core Values award at the FIRST LEGO League’s Northwest Qualifying Tournament. Orchard's Lego Robotics Club meets during the middle school designated club time. Orchard students who participated in the competition also attended practice after school on Thursdays. Students in the competition have to complete work in three different areas (Core Values, Research Project around this year's theme, and Robot Mission). Getting the robot to autonomously complete the challenges requires a lot of computational thinking. Students have to assess the task(s) they want the robot to do, construct a robot and attachments to accomplish the tasks, and then program the robot to run the tasks.
The categories for the Core Value award winners are:
Inspiration - This award celebrates a team that is empowered by their FIRST LEGO League experience and displays extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit.
Teamwork - This award recognizes a team that is able to accomplish more together than they could as individuals through shared goals, strong communication, effective problem solving and excellent time management.
Gracious Professionalism - This award recognizes a team whose members show each other and other teams respect at all times. They recognize that both friendly competition and mutual gain are possible, on and off the playing field.
Inspiration - This award celebrates a team that is empowered by their FIRST LEGO League experience and displays extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit.
Teamwork - This award recognizes a team that is able to accomplish more together than they could as individuals through shared goals, strong communication, effective problem solving and excellent time management.
Gracious Professionalism - This award recognizes a team whose members show each other and other teams respect at all times. They recognize that both friendly competition and mutual gain are possible, on and off the playing field.
On the day of the event Orchard’s team presented a poster they made about how they displayed the core values during the season, then they participated in a teambuilding challenge. There was no way to prepare for the teambuilding challenge, as it’s decided by the judges the day of the competition.
Orchard teachers, Reegan Homburg (middle school technology) and Brendan Chandler (7th grade science) are the coaches for our Robotics Club and they give all the credit to their mathematicians. “This is their club entirely,” Homburg says. “Mr. Chandler and I are only there to help them plan, organize and offer advice when they need it. Homburg also believes it’s only fitting that Orchard won the Core Values award—as it blends so well with our progressive education model. “The Core Values award exemplifies all we strive to do here at Orchard,” she says. “We are raising kids that are able to work together, solve problems, think creatively, and become people who are inclusive to everyone and their ideas.”
All three sections of the competition (The Core Values Presentation/Activity, Reaseach Project Presentation, and Robot Game) are weighted evenly. Our team's overall score combined in all three sections was one of the top four scores of the 16 teams at the competition. Congratulations and good luck at the state competition on December 2nd in Evansville!
