Students Reach New Heights at Bridge Street Middle School
Niamh Coomey Trending
WHEELING -- Seventh grade students "took flight" at Bridge Street Middle School on Thursday afternoon in the school's fifth annual paper airplane competition, a way to learn about motion and force.
The plane throwing competition is the brainchild of science teacher Kenneth Dague, known for his hands-on learning activities. The seventh graders have been hard at work in his class studying early physics principles and perfecting their planes and throwing technique.
Dague said that the students finding joy in the competition is the most important thing he wants them to leave with, but he also emphasized the introductory physics skills that students glean from this activity.
"I hope they learn how to have a good time first and foremost, I hope we get a lot of laughs," he said. "Seventh grade is a lot about motion and force and some intro to physics and flight is all about force. It's about lift overcoming drag, it's about thrust overcoming gravity so we studied these four forces in depth and then their challenge to make a plane fly a distance."
This year, there was also a representative from the United States Air Force cheering the students on at the competition, Sgt. Ashton Mingee.
Mingee applauded the students for their hard work and reminded them to "aim high" and show up every day.
"Whether you're throwing paper planes across the room or [planes land] right in front of you, what matters is that you try, you learn and you have the courage to launch," she said.
The school's previous record distance for a single throw was 81 feet, which was beat at Thursday's competition.
The three students who had the most feet combined in their three throws -- and received a trophy -- were Ashlynn Adams in first place, Hunter Waldron in second place and McKenzie Freeman in third place.
Adams' winning score was a combined 232 feet, while Waldron and Freeman both reached 197 feet and had to break the tie with a one-plane toss.
Hunter placed second overall but broke the previous school record with a throw reaching 86.5 feet.
The "One Toss" winner was Owen Ueltschy and the "Teacher Toss" winner -- a new addition to the competition this year -- was music teacher Luke Mazure.
"The first day we started this, there were very few kids that could throw a plane five feet. It was miserable, it was wonderfully miserable," Dague said. "Just to see the fact that they've gone from these terrible little planes that they've studied and designed and gone back to the drawing board and thought like scientists now they have flights that are flying 70 feet easily and even 80, 90 feet."
Dague said "just to see them progress and get better and have faith in themselves" is his favorite part of this activity each year.
"Kids that were so depressed because they couldn't throw a plane day one now they're in the finals," he said.
Dague said he plans to continue the annual competition for as long as he is at the school.
"I don't see this stopping anytime soon," he said.