On Tuesday morning, the WakeEd Partnership and Wake County school and business leaders came together to help support STEM education.
They did it by challenging schools to produce a great idea that a company can invest in and help students learn at the same time.
The prize: a $3,000 grant to the winning school to help build their idea.
And a group from A.B. Combs magnet middle school came up with a great idea that’s giving chicken coops a boost in technology.
For 5th grader Aiden Beemish, creating a new-age chicken coop meant pitching the idea he and his fellow classmates from A.B. Combs developed in front of more than 100 people – which Aiden called nerve-wracking.
The competition was called an “Idea Crucible”– a “Shark Tank” style competition between teachers and students within Wake County public schools. In the competition, science, technology, engineering and math are all part of the winning equation.
Chelsea Broughton, the STEM coordinator at A.B. Combs, said, “We looked at the different components a chicken coop needed to have and looked at the different grade levels and what the kids we thought developmentally could handle.”
On Tuesday morning, the final four teams out of more than 170 that entered pitched their idea to six judges.
Judge Colleen Dotson, an engineer at host company Biogen, said she was impressed by what she saw in the chicken coop.
“What was really cool is they were implementing all facets of science, engineering, technology and math,” Dotson said. “The fact it would have an automatic opening and using of a door and it would be sustainable.”
The chicken coup designed by A.B. Combs students took the top prize.
“This is awesome – a dream come true,” said Aiden.
This year, 43 businesses in the Triangle were involved with WakeEd to help mentor students and teachers in various areas on business and technology.
