ThisWeek News

1/31/2008

DAVID J. CROSS
ThisWeek Staff Writer

A group of Columbus City Schools’ students may have been green at this year’s First Lego League competitions, but it didn’t stop them from tackling a myriad of environmental issues.

The Green Dayz Team, an after school club at Dominion Middle School, competed in the Lego League state competition earlier this month, garnering high marks for their work.

The Lego League is a program for children that combines robotics and a research presentation with a sports-like atmosphere.

This year, teams were required to research green energy.

The Green Dayz Team, which was new to the league, chose to study how its own school could better use alternative energy.

“We started to do our project on how we would renovate our school, on how we could become a greener school,” said 13-year-old Megan Sinclair, an eighth-grader at Dominion.

Susan Forbes, who advised the students, said the school was chosen because it was on the list of schools the district planned to renovate.

At the state competition, the school received an excellent ranking — the highest possible — in teamwork and for the students’ research project, and received a rating of good for their technical presentation.

Among the green applications the students recommended were geothermal heat pumps, solar panels and water conservation.

“I learned that it would be easy with rain if you could actually cover the roof so that when it rains it can run to a rainwater barrel, and then you can use that water to flush toilets and water plants,” Sinclair said.

While doing the research project, the students also had to build a robot to carry out specific tasks.

Forbes said it was difficult to program a robot that would have to perform such tasks as delivering wind turbines.

“They have to build the robot and everything that goes on the board,” said Forbes. “It’s very, very challenging to get everything done.”

The students became interested in the league after attending a camp put on by this year’s overall winner of the Ohio portion of the Lego League competition, MindStorm Troopers from Westerville.

The six students in the club were recognized at the Jan. 22 Columbus Board of Education meeting.

“Their work will really have a positive influence on our work of renovating Dominion Middle School when we get to that portion of the facilities plan,” said Superintendent Gene Harris. “I am really proud of what they have done.”

Sinclair said she has learned to care about the environment.

“I was talking to this guy who was going to throw all this stuff away instead of bring it to school the next day to recycle and that made me sad it was easier to throw away than recycle.”

In addition to Sinclair, students who were involved were Ben Alexander, Henry Kangas, Sarah Weaver, Zane Geiger and Michael Lipster.