Ten 4th graders at Dearington Elementary School for Innovation have taken the theories and ideas they learned in their engineering classes to create a Commonwealth Coal Train that looks good enough to eat and worthy of a national competition.
Using basic tools and supplies, and a whole lot of cookie dough, these youngsters rolled out a gingerbread display of a train taking coal out of the mountains of Virginia and through a covered railroad bridge.
The display will be taken to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., for the 20th Annual National Gingerbread House Competition & Display. The contest entries will be judged the evening of Saturday, November 17th, 2012 and will remain on display through January 2nd.
The group, along with teacher Carrie Lewis, has been meeting at lunch and once a week after school since September. They had numerous brainstorming sessions to discuss the possibilities for construction. They sketched out their ideas, voted on their favorites, and then put them to the test. Some ideas worked well (using Twizzlers for the railroad tracks and crushed Oreos for the coal), while others (broccoli for trees) were tossed out. After a great deal of trial and edible error, the project was completed in early November.
This was a math enrichment project, and the students said the process taught them about scale and the importance of using right angles. In their competition essay, the group says, “We learned a lot about how math is used doing many things for just this one project. It is amazing how much math engineers and contractors must have to use every day.”
The students participating in this project were: Mikale Hutchins, Andrew Cox, Janiya Harris, Jernelle Carter, Tya Blake, Jaela Tucker, Lucas Arnold, Leah Love, Daniel Gubay (alternate), Destiny Chamberliss (alternate).