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Traveling in style

A helicopter with an X-Box 360 and a mind-controlled Hovercraft are just two of the modes of future transportation students dreamt up.

By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE
Published March 2, 2006

INVERNESS - The bicycle helmet, the sailor caps and the red bandana on the children's heads were indications that something unusual was happening in one of the classrooms Beth Cornelius uses at Pleasant Grove Elementary School.

Cornelius is the REACH teacher, or teacher of gifted students, at Pleasant Grove Elementary and Lecanto Primary schools. Her students recently completed a transportation unit, and Cornelius arranged a program to show off what they learned to parents and guests.

The program began with PowerPoint presentations during which each child stood before the visitors and described a mode of transportation.

The children used the loosest sense of the word transportation: everything from roller coasters to airplanes. Cornelius required a dissection of the vehicle's parts; a timeline; a flip chart or fact file; a poem, puzzle or comic strip; and a three-dimensional model made from junk.

The models made use of empty paper towel or toilet cardboard tubes, pipe cleaners, wooden spools, bottle caps, foam packing peanuts, plastic bottles and a lot of masking tape. One student used part of an egg carton to create humps for her camel.

A fun and interesting requirement of the unit was to suggest what the modes of transportation will be like in the future.

Fourth-grader Austin Stephens, from Lecanto Primary, determined that future Black Hawk helicopters will have kitchens, sleeping areas and, of course, an X-Box 360.

Lecanto's Noor Alyounces, a fifth-grader, suggested that future trains will float and run on air. Lecanto fourth-grader Paige Obstfeld would like to see more comfortable, speech-activated elevators equipped with televisions, comfy chairs and mirrors.

Fourth-grader Kody McDow, from Pleasant Grove, suggested that future Hovercraft will have built-in homes, invisibility shields and be mind-controlled. Pleasant Grove fourth-grader Alex Logsdon's future submarine will be both land and sea worthy, but curiously could be stored indoors as a pet fish.

These are the other students and the modes of transportation they studied:

LECANTO PRIMARY

Fifth grade: Kurtis Denny, rocket bike; Cory Thomas, roller skates; Keenan Ring, rocket bike; Maddie Gilmore, boats; Avrey Bush, tank; Riley Kopp, Corvette Sting Ray.

Fourth grade: Callie Taylor, roller coasters; C.J. Paveglio, F-16 aircraft; Sara Turner, car; Thomas Daugherty, F-15 aircraft.

Third grade: Joel Pelton, motorcycles; Victoria Anderson, airplane.

Second grade: Chalise Brown, motorcycle; Gregory Eward, train; Kasey Veltman, space ship; Michael Fillenger, airplanes.

First grade: Jordyn Huecker, airplanes; Stevie Daugherty, airplanes.

Kindergarten: Andrew Brown, airplanes.

PLEASANT GROVE

Fifth grade: Robert Verdin, rockets; Greigh Savage, flying boats; Chad Strickland, Hovercraft; Alec Branson, rocket ship; Michael Ray, flying car; Quang Pham, submarines; Kaylee Mammarella, ice skates; Jessica Hernandez, camel.

Fourth grade: Cody Bogart, bicycle; Kody McDow, Hovercraft; Alex Logsdon, submarine; Ally Allen, scooter; Jacob Osborne, blimp; Jonna Bond, steamboat (sea monster proof!); Lizzie Ranaldi, submarine; Abbey Mattingly, hot air balloon; Dima Snyder, skis and poles; Robin Tyler, motorcycle; George Harty, Hovercraft.

Third grade: Alyssa Mekelberg and Kylie Phillips, skateboards; Ben Manion and Maison Metcalf, roller skates; Hayley Fleming and Delaney Mitchell, ice skates.

Second grade: Abby Denham, trains; Robert Kerley, roller skates.

First grade: Ally Thomasson, rockets; Jamie Saltmarsh and Juliana Urban, trains; Alexandra Hand, skateboard.

[Last modified March 2, 2006, 01:32:18]