Fifth graders Dejana Pruitt and Cooper Wilkinson are preparing for battle. Their weapon of choice – brainpower.
“Since Joplin and the other tornado that we had kind of close to here, it was pretty scary and we wanted to learn how we could stop these kind of things,” said Cooper.
That’s why the Fleetridge Elementary students got involved with the Burns & McDonnell Foundation’s “Battle of the Brains” science, technology, engineering and mathematics contest. In their science club project, they make a tornado from scratch.
“We had a heater, [water vapor] and big cardboards and [the water vapor] would bounce off the cardboard,” said Dejana. “We had a fan to make it swirl. So it would look like a tornado.”
More than 560 entries were submitted to the “Battle of the Brains” contest. The pool has since been narrowed down to twenty contestants.
“You really get to make something instead of stand by and watch what’s going on,” said Cooper. “You actually get to do both. You get to watch a little something and then you get to create your own tornado.”
Their teacher Lindsay Sills started science club in August. She’s elated her students who’ve only been in the club a few months were able to make it this far in the competition.
While Dejana and Cooper won’t be around to reap the benefits if Fleetridge wins, they’re still motivated for battle.
“I would like to learn better about science,” said Dejana. “I want to tell my little brother gets in school, I want to tell him and teach him about science.”
Cooper has a similar goal.
“My little brother is going to come here next year,” he said. “[If we win] I think lots of smartboards and maybe more books in the library would be good.”
Fleetridge Elementary is competing against nine other elementary schools in the metro in the Battle of the Brains contest. Additionally ten middle and high schools are competing in their own division.
Which ever school wins will earn a $50,000 grant to support STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education at the school, and students will see
their design constructed in Science City at Union Station during 2012.
Two runners up will earn $5,000 each, and 14 honorable mention schools will earn $1,000 each. The winner is 70% determined by the judge’s rankings, and 30% by an online public vote.
To vote, visit the Battle of the Brains page at battleofthebrainskc.com and selection the project you think should win. You can vote once a day until Nov. 18 at 5:00 p.m.
Winners of the Battle of the Brains KC will be announced on November 21.
