A group of three students from three South County high schools recently presented one of two winning projects in the fifth annual SKILLED competition. Projects in the competition are geared toward science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM), with the goal of educating the next generation.
The team of winners consisted of Cong Vo from Bayless High School, Holly Davis from Lindbergh High School and Emir Husic from Affton High School. The other winning team was a group from the Parkway School District.
“The SKILLED Awards program was created to drive engagement in STEAM education at an early age to prepare and inspire careers in construction and related fields,” SKILLED founder Amanda Bohnert said in a news release. “By developing and implementing STEAM education that is fun, engaging and designed with each specific community in mind, we hope to create a lifelong love of learning and encourage students to pursue future opportunities in in-demand fields.”
The project at hand was titled “Wings & Seeds.” The three students designed it as a fun science project aimed at younger students in kindergarten through second grade. They created a project plan to help students plant milkweed.
“We created a project plan to plant milkweed for butterflies as a way to get kids more involved in STEAM and to help the ecosystem, because milkweed is the only food source for certain butterflies,” Vo said.
The goal of the activity is to grow the butterfly population, raise awareness of butterflies’ declining numbers and teach students about two cycles in nature: the plant growth cycle and the butterfly life cycle.
“At first, we had some trouble figuring out what kind of lesson would be fun for the students but also help them learn. That was when we came up with the idea with the butterflies and the garden,” Husic said. “One of my groupmates already had her own garden and knew a decent amount about butterflies. … I vividly remember in third grade, we had our own butterflies and how enjoyable that was.”
According to Vo, the workload of the project was stressful at first. The three students were connected and did their work as part of the St. Louis CAPS (Centers for Advanced Professional Studies) program — which incorporates different career branches like business, engineering, healthcare and more — into the curriculum.
“The project was a little stressful because we needed to come up with the idea, make a presentation and record a video in under five days,” Vo said. “Overall, the project was fun because it was the first project we had in CAPS that involved both the business and engineering branches.”
The team found out they had placed in the top two of the SKILLED competition while they were in their CAPS class, towards the end of the fall semester. $2,000 in prizes was split between the two teams.
“It was an unreal feeling,” Husic said. “It was so fun doing the project, and it was a surreal feeling realizing that we had actually made money off of a project.”
The SKILLED competition is sponsored in partnership with the Missouri School Board Association (MSBA) and STL Works, and the competition is open to Missouri and Illinois high schoolers.
