• The four girls who are the Vex IQ Robotics team from Whitlow Elementary School in Cumming will represent Georgia in the 'Worlds' competition, April 15–April in Louisville. Teams will be tasked with designing and building a robot to play against other teams from around the world in a game-based engineering challenge. The Whitlow girls were one of three teams who won the state competition early this month at Piney Grove Middle School.
• David Chancey, a 10th-grader at Fannin County High School of Epworth, Ga., has been nominated to attend the Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders in Boston June 28-30, an honors program for students who are passionate about science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Students from across the country will hear Nobel laureates and National Medal of Science Winners talk about leading research, be given advice from deans of the world's top tech universities and learn about cutting-edge advances. David was nominated by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, science director of the National Academy of Future Scientists and Technologists.
• A fifth-grade teacher and a cafeteria worker are Alpharetta Elementary School's Teacher of the Year and Professional of the Year. The teacher is Sally McCarthy. School officials said she engages her students through high standards and expectations and provides the best way to motivate their learning. The professional of the year, Mayra Rodriguez, always goes the extra mile to help make AES food service work smoothly, school officials said.
• Eighth-graders William Browning of Flat Rock Middle and Tyler Odom of Rising Starr Middle in Fayette County, as well as seventh-grader William Gore from Woodward Academy in College Park, will put their geographic knowledge to the test as two of 100 students in the Georgia National Geographic State Bee at Georgia State College of Arts & Sciences on March 27.
• The Grady High School speech and debate team, the Jesters, attended the Georgia Forensic Coaches Association Varsity State Championships March 6-7 and won the Debate Sweepstakes Award, the Speech Sweepstakes Award, and, for the sixth year in a row brought home the overall sweepstakes champion award. Individual students were also named champions in six events: Chloe Citron in prose/poetry; Sam Lombardo in extemporaneous speaking; Robert Brown and Molly Looman in duo interpretation; Molly Looman in dramatic interpretation; Meredith Fossitt in Lincoln-Douglas debate; and Keegan Hasson in congressional debate. Additionally, Grady teacher and Jester coach Mario Herrera was inducted into the Georgia Forensic Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
• The Black Women Film Network presented three Georgia college students with film scholarships at the "Untold Stories Awards Luncheon" March 6 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta. They are Tawanna Easley, at Atlanta Technical College; Dominique Boyd, a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and Erica Lamberson, a student at Spelman College.
• Northview High School's mock trial team won the state championship on March 14, winning every individual award in the final round. Seniors Amber Scales and Patrick Wu took home Outstanding Attorney awards for all three rounds of competition. Senior Harsha Sridhar won an Outstanding Witness award for the first round and then accomplished a Georgia mock trial first by winning the Outstanding Witness awards for both courtrooms in the final round, playing both plaintiff and defendant. Junior Brian Lee, sophomore Will Claussen, junior Shriya Sharma, and Amber Scales each won one and Patrick Wu received two of the Outstanding Performance awards given by an opponent's team. Sharma was admitted to the State Student Bar Association, and Scales was admitted with honors; Sridhar and Wu were previously admitted to the State Student Bar in 2014. Northview's team was also awarded the Team Professionalism Award. All competing teams vote to select the winner of this award.
About the Author
