Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / St. Edith excels in World in Motion program
St. Edith excels in World in Motion program
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published April 3, 2009
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Lauren Santeiu, fifth-grade teacher at St. Edith School in Livonia, was given an award for teaching excellence by organizers of the A World in Motion program, which gives hands-on engineering experience to grade school students. |
Livonia — When it comes to math and science, St. Edith fifth-grade teacher Lauren Santeiu will tell you that a little hands-on project can go a long way.
That's the idea behind A World in Motion, a program sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers in which grade school students design various types of miniature vehicles. One of more than 500 schools in Michigan to participate in the program, St. Edith took home high honors from an AWIM event last year at Detroit's Cobo Hall, where the fifth-grade class from the 2007-2008 school year won the Jet Toy Olympics.
To defend their title this April, St. Edith students have spent class time this semester designing, building and testing balloon-powered paper cars.
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Fifth-graders (from left) Brian Cox, Anthony Angelosanto and Ryan Leja watch their balloon-powered car zip across the school's basketball court. |
"At St. Edith's, it's such an important part of our school year, and we really play it up and kids just really respond to the program," says Santeiu, who was awarded the SAE's Lloyd Reuss Award for Teaching Excellence following last April's competition.
Santeiu, who has taught at St. Edith for three years, was singled out from among thousands of teachers across the country for her use of the AWIM program to help students understand the math and science.
"I was really honored to receive the award," she says. "I'm sharing it with everyone because, really, the volunteers help make this program what it is, and the kids do, too, because they're the ones who are building the projects."
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
St. Edith fifth-graders Madeline Delozier and Ceriena Khzouz (pictured at right) work on a marketing plan for their car. |
Santeiu says a special role was played by Mark Herman, a General Motors Corp. engineer and the husband of St. Edith third-grade teacher Debbie Herman. From within GM, Mark learned about how engineers volunteered to visit schools. He and Debbie had sent their two daughters through St. Edith, so Mark thought the school might embrace the AWIM program. He was right. Mark is now one of a dozen volunteer engineers that visit St. Edith students from the fourth grade through the seventh grade.
"I call it connecting the dots," he says. "I've got (engineers) willing to go to the school, and I have teachers and students willing to participate. All I have to do is put them together."
They seem to fit together well, too. Students, who work on the project in groups of three or four, will engage in conversations about the axles and payloads of their vehicles.
Fifth-grader Veronica Larkin is one of several students who takes pride in the car her team has build this year — a pink limousine with a flat screen television inside.
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Emily Oltman and Veronica Larkin consult with their teacher, Lauren Santeiu, as they put together their limousine for the A World in Motion program. |
"I like working together with my team and thinking of new things to create," says Veronica, 10. "It's good because you get to learn how to work with new people, and you can learn how to be an engineer."
Zack Lauer, 11, says he felt good about the test runs they had with their car, the Red Rover.
"We just learn about experiencing how to make cars go far, and how to pump up the balloon enough to make sure it goes far enough," Zack says, after having watched the car coast smoothly most of the width of St. Edith's basketball court. He adds that he's learned a lot from working with the volunteer engineers.
"It's a good experience because they've been working with cars and they're teaching us how to fix up our cars," he says.
His fellow teammate, Jimmy Pierce, 10, says his favorite part is drawing up the designs.
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Jimmy Pierce, Zack Lauer and Devon Har test out their car, the Red Rover, which they build for the A World in Motion project. |
"I just like designing the cars, making them whatever you want, making them a certain shape," Jimmy says. "It's just fun, basically."
Abby Drabicki, whose team is working on a vehicle they've named the Jelly Car, also likes the imaginative aspect of the project.
"I like designing and sharing my ideas with my group, and just creating stuff," Abby says.
This year's fifth-grade class hopes to duplicate the results of last year's with a good showing at Cobo Hall — the Jet Toy Olympics take place April 22. But regardless of whether they, too, win the gold, educators at St. Edith see a great benefit to putting their math and science lessons "in motion."
"Our kids are learning in a different way," says Principal Sr. M. Margaret Kijek, CSSF. "That's basically what it is — the love of math and science in a different way."
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