Kootenay kids will use virtual learning centers in school!

More than 100 students in Grades 2 to 7 submitted descriptive illustrations with their solutions.

Pictured are Beth Corven, GLOW Program Manager, Jordan Walker, Grand Prize winner, and Matt Storvold, FortisBC engineer. — Photo courtesy kastglows.ca

Imagine! Your children head off to school in the year 2050.  Your child in Grade 2 learns how to properly hold a pencil and craft letters using the Letter Better.  In Grade 3, each child has his/her own personal robot, while in Grade 4, students enter the classroom and don a headset that creates a virtual learning center. In Grade 5, students use a computer that not only engineers inventions but tests their functionality.  Learners in Grade 6 use a Dictionary pen that gives a definition as each word is being written, and those in Grade 7 have Bluetooth desktop smartboards that are linked to the teacher’s smartboard.  To cap it off, all students will use the world’s best pencil.  Ahh, such is life in 2050, powered by the dreams and imagination of Kootenay kids in 2015.

Could such a future be awaiting us? If the 2015 Kootenay Contraption Contest is any indication, the contest winners and tomorrow’s innovation leaders will have lots of creative ideas to draw on to power a bright future in education. KAST GLOWS (Growing, Learning Opportunities with Science) recently wrapped up the 2015 Kootenay Contraption Contest which posed the following challenge to students in school districts 8, 10, 20 and 51: “In the year 2050, what contraption will change the way in which students learn or are taught in school?”

More than 100 students in Grades 2 to 7 submitted descriptive illustrations with their solutions. Judges from FortisBC and KAST reviewed the many creative submissions, and are pleased to announce the winners:

Jordan Walker, a Grade 4 student from Fruitvale Elementary in Fruitvale, took the Grand Prize, an iPad Air, for his Virtual Learning Center invention. “It looks like 3D glasses, but when you put them on, you are in a virtual learning center,” he wrote. “For example, if you were learning about dinosaurs you could actually feel like you were walking with a T‐Rex while he talks to you about himself.  It makes learning visual and more fun,” Jordan noted.  In addition to the iPad Air, Jordan received a letter of congratulations from the lead engineers at FortisBC, the primary sponsor of the contest.

Winners at each grade level were also selected and won a pizza party for their whole class:

• Grade 2: Charly from Kinnaird Elementary in Castlegar – “Letter Better” contraption
• Grade 3: Jerek from Fruitvale Elementary School in Fruitvale – Personal robot w/iPad
• Grade 4: Jordan from Fruitvale Elementary School in Fruitvale – Virtual learning center
• Grade 5: Arman from Wildflower in Creston – Computer for engineering and testing inventions
• Grade 6: Max from Fruitvale Elementary School in Fruitvale – Dictionary pen
• Grade 7: Tyler from Fruitvale Elementary School in Fruitvale – Food generator 
• Teacher: Debbie Korn from Fruitvale Elementary – World’s best pencil

GLOWS wishes to thank the supporters of the 2015 Kootenay Contraption Contest, FortisBC and Columbia Basin Trust.