News
 

In Hazelwood

Seventh graders at Kirby Junior High School in north county are getting a personal look at how city governments make decisions on important local issues. 

And, in their case, the kids also gathered information and gave advice on the project in the city of Hazelwood. 

The issue is whether the city should approve a plan to build a large “shoppertainment” mall on a Missouri River flood plain area. The mall site is an undeveloped area of northwest Hazelwood.

Another question was, if the mall is built, what sort of stores should be included?

That’s where the kids come in. 

Last December, thirteen seventh graders conducted 246 interviews with fellow students. They were asking other kids what sort of stores they’d like to see in the mall. 

Thirteen-year-old Tierra McCoy said, “We conducted the survey when we saw students in the hallways.” 

Then, after the surveys were counted, a representative of the Mills Corp. came to the school to hear the results. The Mills Corp. is the developer that’s proposing to build the new mall. It would have 200 stores, including 16 large anchor stores. 

The corporation specializes in malls that combine retail stores with all sorts of entertainment opportunities. That’s why they use the term “shoppertainment” to describe their malls. The company has projects in 14 other states.

According to survey results, Kirby kids wanted outlet branches of all the major department stores. That would include Famous-Barr, Dillards, Sears, J.C. Penney and Lord and Taylor. 

Forty per cent of the kids also mentioned restaurants, such as Red Lobster, Applebees and others. Twenty-five per cent wanted sports-oriented stores such as Athlete’s Foot and FootAction. 

About one in five students also mentioned hip-hop-oriented stores such as Stylin Brands, Vibe and The Source. 

Twelve-year-old Chassidy Bell said she got twenty different stores mentioned in surveys she took. She and thirteen-year-old Nicole Davis said they both had kids mention wanting a Dave and Buster’s restaurant.

Neither of the girls had ever been to a Dave and Buster’s, although there is one in Earth City. However, the restaurant fits the mall’s “shoppertainment” theme. It features both food and entertainment opportunities. 

The survey of store suggestions was just one part of the Kirby kids’ study of the Hazelwood city government. Late in February, all thirteen took an all-day field trip to see what’s involved in running a community like Hazelwood.

They got a personal briefing from Mayor T. R. Carr in the city council’s meeting room. While listening to the mayor, the kids sat in seats usually filled by the mayor, city council members and the city manager and city attorney. 

Tierra McCoy said, “I really liked to use the microphones at the city council desks.” 

But, 13-year-old Katie Lutas said she liked best the tour of the city jail and the city fire station. All of the kids were impressed by the chance to see the cells where prisoners were kept. 

All of them were glad they could leave when they wanted to. 

Other places on the tour included the city garage, the community center and the public works and finance departments. They also got a chance to question City Manager Ed Carlstrom on his role in the Mills Corp. mall project.

He said the mall negotiations have been going on for over 2 1/2 years.

One of the reasons it’s taken so long is that many people in Hazelwood didn’t want a mall built on the Missouri River bottomland. They wanted it left undeveloped and used for park land. 

Joel Smiley is an assistant to the Hazelwood city manager. He has been helping the kids understand all the different parts of the mall project. 

Barb Easley is the social studies coordinator in the Hazelwood School District. She’s been planning the city government lessons for the kids.

She said, “We’re going to spend time in class talking about these earlier conflicts.” 

Smiley said most of the court challenges to the mall project have been settled. The city expects to have a ground-breaking ceremony in the spring and the mall is to open in 2002. 

If the mall is built, the Kirby kids will have a better understanding of how that project came to be. They’ll even have had some part in which stores are included.
 
 

The Kirby Junior High School study of the Hazelwood mall project is one of a number of local city projects throughout metro St. Louis. 

The studies are organized by the Citizenship Education Clearing House (CECH) at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. That’s the same group that organized the Kids Voting 2000 projects during last fall’s national elections. 

(Young Saint Louis.com had stories about the Kids Voting 2000 on both the September, 2000, and December, 2000, editions. You can read those stories by clicking on archives on the homepage and going to those editions.) 

For more information on how you and your school could work on similar governmental or voting projects, you can log on to the CECH website at:

  www.umsl.edu/divisions/education/cechsite/index.html

That site gives information about both the voting and local government programs. 

Or you could call Marvin M. Beckerman, program director, Citizenship Education Clearing House, at (314) 516-6821.
 
 

Business class goes global

Last month, you read about classroom businesses of 5th graders at Null Elementary in St. Charles. 

This month, their teacher, Margaret Benedict, goes to Croatia to plan an international student-to-student exchange of those “mini-societies” lessons. 

After that, the St. Charles students will exchange information with Croatian elementary students. 

Benedict told Young Saint Louis.com, “It’s real exciting to go there to plan these exchange classes.” When the planning is done, St. Charles kids will share their cultural and economic ideas and experiences with Croatian kids of the same age. 

Benedict’s meetings will be April 20-29 in Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia. That country is now recovering from bad war experiences involving countries which used to be part of Yugoslavia. 

To read the first story about the “mini-societies” class, just click on archives, select the March, 2001, edition and call up the News story.
 

Sports
 

AAU basketball

Missouri high school basketball teams already have completed their 2001 tournament season. 

But, for younger boys and girls, the tournament season is just starting. April and May are months when the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) holds qualifying for summer national tournaments. 

For boys, the competition involves teams as young as 8-and-under. For girls, the competition starts with 10-and-under teams. 

Middle schoolers Kate Seabaugh, Courtney Alvey and Jessi Rosehill are among the girl players involved. But, for them, things are a little different. 

They’re actually trying to get back to the nationals again this year. 

Last year, they were members of the St. Louis Crusaders’ 12-and-under team that played in the national meet at Ogden, Utah. They finished 17th out of 64 teams. 

This year, their 13-and-under team is among the favorites in Ozark AAU District tournament play. 

Thirteen-year-old Kate and 14-year-old Courtney will be trying for a fourth consecutive trip to the nationals. They went earlier with Crusader teams in the 10-and-under, 11-and-under and 12-and-under age groups.

Thirteen-year-old Jessi is looking for her second nationals trip. 

With that sort of success, it’s obvious the Crusader organization does more than form pickup teams. 

Courtney said, “We play more games in a season than in the WNBA.” That’s the women’s professional basketball league which plays in the summer. 

Kate said, “We practice twice a week and then play as many as four games just about every weekend.” 

But, they love the activity. Courtney said, “We have so much fun together as a team at out-of-town tournaments.”

Sometimes, they have to play in pain. Jessi is just getting back in action after breaking her ankle in an earlier games. After a recent preliminary tournament win, she said, “I used to be able to drive to the basket better before I broke my ankle.” 

She relied mostly on 3-point baskets to lead her team in that tournament win against a team of older girls. 

These three girls are veterans of national tournament play. But, their team also has lots of other strengths, including 6-foot-6 center Erin McCarthy and a lot of other fast players. 

The team also uses a full-court press on defense. And they can shift easily into a controlled overload offense when faced by the opponent’s zone defense. 

One thing that is quite common among the Crusaders players is their early start in basketball. 

Kate, Courtney and Jessi all said they started playing basketball in Y leagues at age four. Usually, they were the only girls playing in the boys games. 

All of the girls hope to play basketball in both high school and college. 

Kate is a 5’10” power forward. She is a 7th grader at The College School of  Webster Groves. 

Courtney is 6-feet tall. She usually plays center but said, “I move to forward when our big girl (Erin McCarthy) comes in.” 

She and Jessi are both 8th graders at Crestview Middle School in the Rockwood School district. 

They said the Crusaders are more than a basketball team to them. They consider their teammates as their best friends.
 
 

Boys and girls basketball teams are just two options for local kids to play sports at young ages. 

You can learn more about how you can get involved by clicking on two websites. 

First, there is the national AAU’s website at www.aausports.org. Then, the Ozark district which serves St. Louis and the surrounding area has a site at www.myteam.com/go/ozaau. 

Besides basketball, sports competition for kids include track and field, volleyball, wrestling, golf, karate, swimming and others.
 
 

Six St. Louis middle school students have won the Art Madness poster contest sponsored by the 2001 NCAA Women's Final Four.

The poster contest was part of the Middle School Madness lesson plans. Over 100 schools took part in the program. The lesson plans ranged from art to science and were built around basketball themes.

Local poster winners were honored Saturday, March 31, at the America's Center. In addition, each received four tickets to Hoop City activities at the America's Center.

Also, their posters were displayed on the NCAA and Final Four websites. Those sites can be found at www.ncaabasketball.net and www.stl2001finalfour.org.

The winners are:

Outdoors
 

On Saturday, April 7

Do you know how to quack like a duck?

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a beaver’s house looks like?

Do you know what sort of little living things call a Missouri lake or stream home?

If you’re a kid in St. Louis, you can find out about all sorts of outdoor things at the Wetlands for Kids event on Saturday, April 7. The event is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area in St. Charles County. 

This event will show city families how easy it is to experience outdoor fun in Missouri. Also, the Busch Conservation Area is within easy driving distance of even inner city neighborhoods. 

A lot of the displays let the kids participate. 

Kids also will get a chance to take away free things they’ll enjoy throughout the year. 

For instance, you’ll get a free membership in Greenwing. That’s the kids division of Ducks Unlimited. Membership includes a year’s subscription to the kid’s magazine, The Puddler.

You also can qualify for free tree seedlings that you can plant at home. 

The whole Wetlands for Kids event is free. And there is no advance registration. You just show up and take part in the activities you like. 

The event is being run by the Missouri Department of Conservation. It’s co-sponsored by The Monsanto Fund and Ducks Unlimited.

While you’re at Wetlands for Kids, be sure to ask for information on year-round outdoor activities for St. Louis area families. For information and directions, call (636) 441-4554. 

Here’s a complete list of activities at the Wetlands for Kids: 

• Retriever dogs: Experienced trainers will give demonstrations on how their dogs retrieve ducks and other waterfowl during hunting trips. 
• Duck calling: Kids can get lessons from experienced callers on how to make duck calls. 
• Beaver lodge: Kids make beaver tails and then get to crawl through a giant, man-made beaver home. 
• Archery: Kids will get a chance to shoot with a bow and arrow, just like the Native American Indians did years ago. 
• Check on wetlands wildlife: Kids will collect samples with nets for things that live in Missouri’s streams and lakes. They can also see and feel snakes and frogs. 
• Wildlife trapping: A member of the Missouri Trappers Assn. will talk about the history of trapping in Missouri. Fur trading was big business in St. Louis’ during pioneer times. 
• World Bird Sanctuary: Kids can see live birds and learn the history of birds of Missouri. 
• Live fish displays: Conservation biologists will exhibit Missouri fish in a large aquarium. 
• Duck wing maze: You search for clues in a giant maze to discover the name of a species of ducks.
• A watershed model: See a large model of a river watershed and learn how wetlands help to keep it healthy.

Would you like your school to help you learn more about Missouri’s outdoors?

If so, why not ask your teacher to sign up for a Missouri Conservation Department’s summer workshop. The department shows teachers how to use outdoor subjects in their classrooms. 

For instance, one workshop is called “Lewis & Clark and the Big River Confluence.” That’s about the historic trip from St. Louis up the Missouri River. It makes a good social studies subject. 

Other courses to be offered this summer involve conservation subjects in teaching of art, science, literature, writing and other subjects. 

For information, your teacher can visit the Conservation Department’s website at: 
     www.conservation.state.mo.us/teacher/workshops/workshops.html
 

Books

Tyler Duvall is a twelve-year-old from San Francisco.  His mother has allowed him to travel by himself to visit Jake, her brother in Alaska.  Tyler is looking forward to a month-long fishing vacation.  He thought his uncle would meet him at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska.  Instead, to his surprise, a really big guy named Duke, who is his uncle’s old army buddy, meets him. Duke is a bush pilot who flies supplies in to the remote area where Jake has a cabin. Duke is to deliver Tyler to his uncle’s place along with a planeload of supplies. 

The ride in a beat-up looking airplane with a huge wild-looking pilot was just the beginning of Tyler’s adventures. When he finally arrives at the primitive cabin, he finds that his Uncle Jake is seriously ill.  Also there are two kids living there, a boy and a girl.  The two are orphans that his uncle has taken in to care for.  The situation isn’t exactly what Tyler had expected. 

The good news is that there is a stream near-by that looks good for fishing.  As you can guess from the title of the book, the bad news is that there is a grizzly bear that also likes to fish from the stream. The real tension starts when the grizzly smells the ham baking that Tyler is preparing for a special dinner. Mr. Grizzly wants in the cabin for his dinner and he’s big enough to tear the cabin apart to get in. Once inside, he is likely to want to eat more than just the baked ham!  How would you like to be in a little cabin with an 800-pound bear gradually breaking through the walls?  You need to read the book to find out how it all works out. 

“Grizzly Attack” was written by Todd Strasser and published by Pocket Books.
 
 

Samantha Byrd is fourteen years old and lives in Virginia.  The story begins in 1775 when the Revolutionary War is just about to start.  Unlike most girls in her time, Samantha is an excellent shot with a musket and can sail a boat better than any boys her age.  She likes to wear breeches and shirts and hates the corsets, petticoats, and long skirts that girls of her time are expected to wear. 

Samantha’s father and older brother are both members of a group called the “Sons of Liberty.” These are colonists who want to declare their independence from England.  They have neighbors who remain loyal to England.  These “loyalists” cooperate with the English soldiers and try to see that the Sons of Liberty are caught and put in prison. 

Samantha likes her life and doesn’t want things to change.  She would like to see peace restored and Virginia go back to being a peaceful colony of England.  But bad things begin to happen to her family.  Her older brother is thrown into prison.  Loyalists burn her father’s tobacco storage shed to the ground.  So Samantha knows she has to take sides and do what she can to secure freedom for her family and her home state of Virginia.

To help save her older brother, Samantha disguises herself as her twin brother and becomes a crewmember on a sailing ship. The captain of the colonist’s ship is intent on freeing some of the Sons of Liberty who are being held as prisoners on an English ship in the harbor. Samantha’s unusual skills as a sailor and a sharpshooter turn out to be useful in the rescue attempt. 

The book provides some historical background on the Revolutionary War while it tells about a young girl’s involvement in what most would see as a man’s war.
 
 

Tiger Ann Parker at twelve years old has reached the age where her parents embarrass her. Her father and her mother are loving parents but both are mentally slow. Tiger’s classmates at school make cruel remarks about them.

The family leads a reasonably normal life in Saitter, Louisiana, because Tiger’s strong and smart grandmother lives with them.  Granny is the one who sees that the house is kept clean, the clothes are laundered, the meals are cooked, and the bills are paid on time. But Granny dies suddenly.  Now, what to do?

Aunt Dorie Kay, who left the small country town years before, arrives to help make arrangements for the funeral.  Dorie Kay lives in Baton Rouge, the state capitol and a large city. She works for the governor, dresses like a fashion plate, and lives in a nice apartment complex with a swimming pool. 

After the funeral, Dorie Kay takes Tiger to the big city for a visit. When she brings Tiger back to Saitter, they find things pretty much in a shambles.  Tiger’s mom and dad just can’t manage without someone to take charge.  Of course, Dorie Kay wants Tiger to come back with her to Baton Rouge and live with her in that large city.

There are a number of events that complicate the plot. Mainly, Tiger has to decide whether she wants to stay in Saitter and help her parents live like they did before or move to Baton Rouge and make a life for herself in the city, such as her aunt did. There are other characters in the story that, in one way or another, help Tiger make the right decision.
 
 

Fiona Fagan is a pretty good player on her middle school soccer team.  Her problem is that she has asthma and she really has to take precautions to help keep it under control.  She has to take her inhaler to practice.  When she feels that she is about to have breathing difficulty, she has to go to the sidelines to take deep breaths from the inhaler.

Fiona felt sometimes that the other girls thought she was some kind of a freak because of her problem. She really got into trouble when she foolishly convinced herself that she had outgrown her need for the inhaler. She lied to her parents and told them she was taking her medication to practice, when she wasn’t.  When she had to be rushed to the hospital emergency room, the truth came out.  Her angry parents made her quit the team. 

How the team supported her and helped convince her parents to change their minds is a big part of the story.  Fiona came to find out that her true friends respected her and wanted to see her control her asthma and be a major part of the soccer team.  Side issues included double dating with a girlfriend who felt she had to experiment with smoking cigarettes in order to impress a boy. 

If you are a girl who likes to play soccer, this might be just the book for you. It includes plenty of soccer game action.  It also has tips on how to improve your game.  Its title is “Soccer Stars, On the Sidelines.”  The author is Emily Costello.
 

Entertainment
 

In Franklin County

Ten-year-old Emily Boyce and 12-year-old Neil Chapman are helping toy companies decide which new products to put on the market. 

They and their Clearview School classmates also give advice on which toys they think are the most fun. They also test for educational value. 

The results of their research is then distributed free through a national magazine, Kid Tips, and on the website, www.toytips.com. Kids and their parents can use this advice in making decisions on which toys and games to buy. 

Clearview School is an elementary school in Franklin County, southwest of St. Louis. It is part of a network of  75 metro St. Louis-area schools that test new toys and games. 

Clearview School kids last fall received the first shipment of toys and games for testing. It included 11 different toys and games from eight different manufacturers. 

The products ranged from a new Crayola coloring kit for kids 3-and-older to a scientific microscope by Mattel/Intel for kids 7-and-older. 

Emily and Neil are in teacher Sharon Seely’s combination 5th-6th class. Their class got four of the toys for testing. 

Emily said she liked University Games’ Wow Science set. She said, “You could take things and do experiments by yourself.” 

Neil said he liked Mattel/Intel’s digital microscope which allowed kids to project the slides onto a computer screen. “I liked it because you can have more people taking part.” With an old-style microscope, only one person at a time could look at a slide.

But, the game that got most votes in Ms. Seely’s class was Blurt!, a card game by Patch. 

In this vocabulary-building game, the dealer gives word clues to other players. The first to “blurt out” the right answer gets to keep the card. A typical question: A small horse with spots. The answer: A pinto pony. The winner is the one who collects the most cards.

Twelve-year-old Dustyn Ferree tested all four of the toys and games in Ms. Seely’s class. His favorite: “Probably Blurt! because it’s so challenging.” 

Another toy tested in that class were Knex’s Ferris Wheel. This toy has multiple pieces that can be put together to build three different models of carnival rides such as the ferris wheel, rotating swing and a two-headed “boom ride.” 

Ms. Seely said, “Not many of the girls liked the Knex Ferris Wheel.”

However, twelve-year-old Alison Marchetto and 12-year-old Laycie Graves were exceptions. Laycie said, “I liked Kenx because it was so complicated.”

The Clearview students have completed their research on the first group of toys and games. Each of the kids completed a questionnaire about each toy he or she tested. Then, teachers also complete a questionnaire on the class choices.

After sending in results, the school waits for the next batch of toys for testing. Schools that return completed questionnaires get more toys about every three months. 

In the meantime, they get to keep the toys for continued use in the classroom. 

Blurt! is used regularly in English. The digital microscope has been used for science classes. Ms. Seely said, “We used it for our study of cells.”

Also, Principal Karen Smith said fourth graders used the microscope for a health lesson. The students used cotton swabs to collect germs from surfaces at the school. They then let the germs grow and multiply in petri dishes. 

“After the cultures had grown, we looked at them under the microscope. That was a good health lesson after the kids saw what the germs looked like up close,” she said. 

But, some of Ms. Seely’s class found other uses for the microscope. You can take the digital camera piece out of the microscope’s holder and point it around at other people. 

During a recent class, close-ups of students’ eyeballs and noses got the biggest reaction when they were projected onto the computer screen.
 
 

If you’d like to be a toy tester, why not recommend to your teacher that the school sign-up with the Toy Research Institute. 

It is headquartered at the College of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. 

Professor Marvin Berkowitz coordinates the school network for toy testing. The institute works with Toy Tips, Inc. After kids test the toys, results of their research are published in the Kid Tips magazine or on the Toy Tips website (www.toytips.com)

To participate, schools can contact Professor Berkowitz at berkowitz@umsl.edu or call (314) 516-7521 or (314) 516-7522.

Earth
 

At LaClede School

Eight-year-olds Brittany Davis and Kimesha Harper like worms because they’re wiggly. 

Seven-year-old Marquis Anderson doesn’t like worms because they’re wiggly. 

But, Brittany, Kimesha, Marquis and their classmates are using little worms to change food scraps into new soil for the school’s garden. 

The little red worms are eating away in the same LaClede School classroom where the kids are studying. Last month, the kids put shredded newspapers in their “worm bin” to make a comfortable bed for the worms. 

After wetting the newsprint, they added several containers of worms. 

For the rest of the school year, the kids will bring table scraps from home to feed the worms. In turn, the worms will eat that garbage and even the newsprint. 

After about three or four months, the food scraps and newsprint will be turned into compost. That’s a type of natural fertilizer they’ll put on their garden to help grow better vegetables and flowers. 

LaClede School is in the city of St. Louis. It’s had a school garden for the last 15 years. All kids in the school help with the community garden. The kids’ part of the neighborhood garden is called the Maffit Cabbage Patch. 

Most of the city kids haven’t seen a rural farm. But, a lot of them have gardens at home. 

Kimesha said, “My grandma has a garden and I help her. I also worked in the Cabbage Patch last year.”

Brittany also said her family has a garden “all around our yard.” She said, “We grow cabbage, potatoes and celery.”

Marquis said he doesn’t mind ripping up the newspapers and making a bed for the worms. And he knows the worms can help the garden plants. But, he said, “I’m not getting my hands in the worm bin.” 

Teacher Eunice Spratt’s second graders have the responsibility of making compost in the “worm bin.” Other classes have “grow labs.” These are shelves with fluorescent lights where seeds can be planted indoors. That lets the kids start the garden plants before the weather’s warm enough to plant outdoors. 

The neighborhood garden is on two vacant lots near the school. Because homes used to be on the lots, the soil there isn’t very good for gardening. It needs lots of compost and other fertilizers in order to grow good vegetables and flowers. 

That’s where the little red worms come in. 

With a little help from food scraps like banana peels, apple cores, leftover cornbread and even egg shells, the worms change the garbage into valuable compost. When mixed with regular soil, the compost makes the ground softer and better for growing plants. 

Seven-year-old Kennitra Gray said this is her first year at LaClede School so she hasn’t worked in the school’s garden. But, she said, “We have a garden at home. We grow tomatoes, lettuce, carrots and flowers.” 

However, she says she likes broccoli better. Especially if it’s got melted cheese over it. 

Eight-year-old Jon Eric Ridgel is another kid who likes to play with the worms. “It tickles when they move,” he said. 

Teacher Spratt said worms around the school also help with education. “They are great motivators. The kids really get into them,” she said.

Also, the teachers build special lessons around worms and other gardening subjects. 

Spratt’s class listed words they associate with worms to help build vocabulary. Among words listed were “wiggle,” “smooth,” “ridges,” “slow,” “fast,” “stretch” and “small.” 

But, another word on the list was “hearts.” When asked about that, Spratt said, “Kids did some research and found that the little red worms have five hearts.”
 
 

The kids at LaClede School get their little red worms and other gardening help from an organization called Gateway Greening. 

That group is associated with the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Gateway Greening can provide help to schools or neighborhoods that want to set up community gardens. The help includes gardening expertise, providing seeds and even some financing. 

A lot of city neighborhood groups establish gardens which also become community meeting places. At LaClede School, rows of benches have been added so the garden can be used for outdoor classes. 

One of the big spring projects for Gateway Greening is the “Great Perennial Divide.” It will be held this year on May 12 at the Bell Community Garden in the city of St. Louis. 

This is an event where gardeners throughout metro St. Louis dig up surplus plants. At the “Divide,” other community gardeners can pick them up for transplanting. 

Groups and individuals can get help from Gateway Greening. For information, just call (314) 577-9484 or visit the website at www.gatewaygreening.org.
 

Science
 

The Eggs-Prize

How do you get a water rocket made of a plastic soda bottle to fly 100 feet in the air?

Then, how do you keep the egg “payload” from breaking when the rocket comes back to earth?

These are just a couple of the problems facing a group of sixth and seventh graders at McKinley Classical Junior Academy. They are taking part in an Eggs-Prize science project. 

The after-school project is sponsored by the XPRIZE Foundation in St. Louis. That’s the group which has offered a $10 million prize to the inventors of a new type of low-cost vehicle for repeated, sub-orbital space travel. 

The prize-winning vehicle has to be able to carry at least three people on flights on two consecutive weeks.

The Eggs-Prize rocket project for kids has similar goals. The kids are to invent a low-cost rocket that can reach a certain height, return to earth safely and be reusable. 

The sponsors also want young people to start understanding the process of scientific invention. They also want kids to be thinking about the next generation of space vehicles. 

Eleven-year-old Becky Smith had a taste of working with rockets last summer. She took part in a rocket class for kids at Meramec Community College. 

The sixth grader said, “I thought the McKinley class would be like that. But, I found out we were going to use water rockets here. But, it turned out cool anyway.”

At a recent session, Becky was building a nose-cone to hold parachutes that would slow the rocket’s return to earth. But, she said she hasn’t figured out how to trigger the release of the parachutes at the top of the rocket’s flight. 

She’s also worried about the extra weight of the nose-cone. That might keep the rocket from getting to the 100-foot height that’s needed.

Becky and other kids already have test-fired the rockets to see which mixture of water and air get the most height. Most of them found putting less water and more pressurized air worked best. 

Eleven-year-old Nicholas Moore used cardboard fins on his bottle rocket to keep it going straight up. “The fins helped it stay steady but the rocket didn’t go up far enough. Then, I took the fins off and used less water. It went higher but it tumbled,” he said. 

Twelve-year-old Clifford Sykes is putting a pointed cone on the top of his rocket to cut the air better when the rocket is launched. He’s also looking at ways to slow the descent of the rocket. 

“I’ve been thinking of putting a shishkabob stick in the nose so it would stick in the ground when it comes down. But, I’m having doubts on whether I can make the rocket come straight down,” he said.

Eleven-year-old Victoria Taylor is thinking about using both parachutes and lots of packing in the nose-cone to cushion the egg “payload” when it comes down. But, she doesn’t know yet how to keep the plastic-bag parachutes from filling up while the rocket is going up. That would cut the height of the launch.

Teacher David Epperson said that balancing answers to all these different questions is part of the scientific experimenting process. He said the Eggs-Prize exercise will help the kids understand how real scientists come up with answers. 

He said, first, the scientists come up with an idea. Then, they make a design and do testing. After that, they often have to re-think their idea and design. That’s because the first thing doesn’t work exactly right. 

The McKinley kids have to pay attention to costs. They are building their rockets from materials that are available in the classroom. The materials include plastic bottles, cardboard, plastic bags, duct tape and other scrap.

Epperson has provided a homemade launching device. It includes a metal base with a locking collar and an electric air pump. Air is pumped into the soda bottle that is partially filled with water. 

When the air pressure is at the right level, the collar on the launch pad is pulled. The rocket is then launched. The kids have a good idea about the proper mixture of water and air needed for best results. 

They’re working on how to slow the descent of the empty rocket with its egg “payload.”

They’re also considering an umbrella made of soda straws that would be folded when the rocket went up. It would open on the way down. 

Teacher Epperson even called his son, who is a helicopter pilot, to see if he had any ideas. Helicopter propellers act as sort of a parachute to slow descent if the plane loses power. But, the kids weren’t sure that would work for their rockets.

The kids hope to have all their experiments done by the end of this semester. Then, they’ll have a joint launch to test which of them invented the rocket that goes up far enough and brings the egg back to earth unbroken.

They have to make their rockets sturdy enough so they can have two successful launches and reentry with the same rocket.
 
 

The XPRIZE Foundation has a neat website to tell more about its kids program. Also, the site includes lots of additional information about space rockets and travel. 

Just log on to www.xprize.org. 

The XPRIZE contest started in 1996 to help “realize the dream of space flight for the general public.” 

To win the foundation’s $10 million prize, a company or group must meet these goals: 

• Create a low-cost space vehicle that can fly at a height of 100 kilometers in space;
• Carry three passengers; 
• Fly twice within a two-week period, 
• And be privately funded and privately constructed. 

The website also has some neat links to other sites that give other information about rockets, space travel and aviation prizes.
 

Games
 

What is the longest word in the dictionary?
     Smiles – because there’s miles between each “s”.

Why was the man fired from the M and M factory?
     Because he threw away all the M and M’s that had W’s on them!

Did you hear about the actor that fell through the floor?
     Oh yes!  It was just a stage he was going through!

What did the mayonnaise say to the refrigerator?
     Close the door!  I’m dressing!

What did the leopard say after eating the hunter?
     Man, that hit the spot!

What do you call a sleeping bull?
     A bulldozer!

What is the most slippery country in the world?
     Greece!

What happens when you throw a green stone in the Red Sea?
     It gets wet!

How many balls of string would it take to reach the moon?
     Just one, if it was long enough!

Why did cavemen draw pictures of hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses on their cave walls?
     Because they couldn’t spell their names!
 
 

Lifestyle
 

A “creativity convention”

A team of kids from St. Paul Catholic School in Fenton has come up with a plan to bring fun back to the riverfront in downtown St. Louis. 

The five members call themselves the Genius in a Bottle team. They want to see a Water Adventure Park built along the Mississippi river. 

Their plan includes an underwater roller coaster, a chance for humans to swim with water  creatures and a Scramble thrill ride. 

Their idea was picked as one of the three best during a recent Academic Challenge Cup creativity competition. There were teams of second and third graders from 34 St. Louis-area schools involved.

Eight-year-old Kelsea Chumley said she likes the underwater roller coaster idea because “you’d be able to see the animals swimming when the ride went underwater.” She added, “And, you could see the people also if they were swimming too.”

Eight-year-old Rachel Green said humans would be able to swim with whales, dolphins and sharks. When asked about swimming with sharks, she said, “They’d be small, tame sharks.” 

Nine-year-old Kenny Siebert said the roller coaster wouldn’t be under water all the time. “It would be above ground and then duck under the water part of the time,” he said. That would be like the Captain Nemo submarine ride at Disneyland in Florida. 

Asked to describe the Scramble ride, eight-year-old Amy Kohlberg said it would go around real fast “and pretty much make you dizzy.” 

 The kids also thought about cost of running their park. 

Nine-year-old Heather Brocksmith said they’d want to keep admission prices low. She said kids under four would be free, from five to 18, $5, and adults would be $7. 

In the competition, the five-member teams were asked to “create a riverfront attraction that would make our city a ‘must-see’ for families.” They had to first think of a plan, then build a model and finally make a marketing plan. They ended the day by presenting their plans to members of the other teams. 

Adult judges scored all parts of the competition. 

The other two teams given “Teams of Excellence” gold medals were the Brainy Bunch of Oak Brook School in Ballwin and The Creative Invention Convention team from Conway School in Ladue. 

The “creative convention” is just one of the spring events that make up the Academic Challenge Cup. Also included are math competitions for third through eighth graders and language contests for fourth through eighth graders. 

In all, 1,425 students from 66 different schools took part. The events are sponsored by the Gifted Resource Council (GRC). That group has been providing unusual learning experiences in the St. Louis area for the last 17 years. 

(For more information about other GRC events, see the sidebar below.) 

Some of the schools taking part in the “creative convention” work on developing their teams all during the school year. For instance, Our Lakes of Good Counsel School in Bellefountaine Neighbors already has recruited kids for next year’s teams.

Arline Mickrent is the resource teacher at the school. She said, “We use kids who were on this year’s teams to help us with the new kids.” This year, the school entered three creative teams. They also had two teams in both the math and language competitions. 

Some of this year’s creative teams also put a lot of effort in their team names and their costumes. One of the winners in the “most creative” name category was the Stinking Thinking Boys from the Shenandoah Valley School in Chesterfield. 

Nine-year-old Matt Dai said, “We brainstormed the name. We started with the name Stinking Thinking.”

But, nine-year-old Lucas Klein added, “Because we were all boys, we changed it to Stinking Thinking Boys.” 

To make themselves stand out even more, they also made hats to wear. The hats included a figure of a skunk, complete with black bodies and the white stripe. However, they didn’t add any skunk odor.
 
 

There are plenty of other Gifted Resource Council activities you and your school can take part in during other times of the year. 

For instance, there are two-week Summer Academy camps for kids six to 14. The subjects include ECO (ecology and economics) Academy, Space Academy, Ancient Academy, Jr. Science Searchers and Math, Marvels and More. 

During the school year in the fall and winter, there are Learning Labs for kids three to 14. These are held on Saturdays. 

A big summer special is the Amazon Rainforest Student Research Project. This involves 18 weeks of preparatory classes February through May. This is followed by a two-week trip to a rainforest in Ecuador during June and July. This is open to seventh and eighth graders. 

For more information, you, your school or your parents can contact the Gifted Resource Council at (314) 842-0666 or look at the GRC website at: www.cybam.com/grc.