• A team of students from Head Elementary School in Gwinnett County earned an all-expense paid trip to Universal Studios, Google, and a chance to meet top engineers, game designers, and animators from Silicon Valley, as the grand prize winner of the prestigious Wonder League Robotics Competition. The group also took home the Oscar for Best Picture for its video submission. The competition requires contestants to use coding to complete various challenges and to submit a video that demonstrates their solutions to the challenge. The Head Elementary team competed against more than 1,100 teams from around the country. "I was amazed at how hard the students worked to complete the training on the app, and then use that new knowledge to solve missions they had never seen before," said teacher Shann Griffith. Principal Christine Knox said, "This team has set an example for all of our students that hard work and perseverance pays off. Mrs. Griffith is an outstanding educator that models what it means to be a lifelong learner and I am extremely proud of her and the students."
• Twelve Parkview High School students have been selected to participate in an ambassador program sponsored by the Georgia Secretary of State, a leadership training program to encourage civic participation and voter registration. The program's launch includes 14 high schools from across the state and over 150 students. They'll speak to classes and assemblies, host voter-registration drives and volunteer in their communities. Participating Parkview students are seniors Ally Blake, Evann Brantley and Sean Sullivan; juniors Andrew Brock, Jahi Hamilton, Alex Massaro, and Ana Villegas; and sophomores Abby Cobb, Morgan Hill, Cameron Huggins, Spencer Lail and Hanna Roebuck.
• Woodward Academy's International Public Policy Forum (IPPF) debate team reached the Sweet 16 round of this year's IPPF competition after besting The American School of Japan in the round of 32. The team will debate Bellaire High School in Texas in the next round. Results for that round will be announced in late February. Woodward's team members are Alanna Pearson '17, Liliana Burgess '16, Gibran Essa '16, and Ali Abdullah '16. The written debate competition involves hundreds of schools from around the globe. More than 30 countries participated in this year's first round debating genetically modified organisms and food security. The field is narrowed down over the year, and the top eight teams go to New York City in May for the final three rounds.
• North Springs Charter High School senior Jason Foster won top honors in Sandy Springs Education Force's recent STE(A)M Graphic Design Competition, from 13 submissions by North Springs students. Foster's presentation was "clean, creative and unique, with great use of space and color," according to competition judge Alison Scheel, the creative director and owner of Yellobee Studio in Sandy Springs.
• Fayette County's middle school math teams won in each division and swept the Individual Winners Overall category at the annual Griffin RESA Regional Middle School Math Contest. Flat Rock Middle took first place among smaller schools; Whitewater Middle among medium schools; and J.C. Booth Middle among larger schools, with Rising Starr Middle taking second in the large-school division. Individual winners were Brandon Worrell from Flat Rock Middle, first place; Irene Kwon of J.C. Booth Middle, second; and Isabelle Neckel from Whitewater Middle, third place. The competition includes schools from Butts, Fayette, Griffin-Spalding, Henry, Lamar, Newton, Pike, and Thomaston-Upson county school systems.
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