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JAY – Thanks to a pair of students and their project, Jay Middle School will soon have a new greenhouse.
Students Dustin Jones and Erik Taylor, both in the eighth grade, were at the Hall of Flags in the State House in Augusta today for the presentation of the Service Learning Awards. Five schools, including JMS, were honored for innovative projects that combine critical thinking and community participation with academics.
Jones and Taylor are in JMS’ Gifted and Talented Program. For their project this year, they decided to build a geodesic dome, using strong math skills and plenty of toothpicks. Geodesic domes utilize triangles, as opposed to the cube-based systems used in most buildings, allowing for greater stability and more evenly dispersed stress, as Taylor explained.
“We use triangles,” he said. “They’re a lot better at reinforcing the dome than squares and right angles. The triangles all lean in and reinforce each other.”
“The building can hold up more weight,” Jones said.
“They probably explained that better than I could,” teacher Robert Taylor said. He added that the greenhouse would provide more space than the small niche that the school currently uses for the many plant-related projects at JMS.
Taylor, who went to Augusta for the award ceremony, is the Gifted and Talented Program teacher at the school. He also is the adviser for the local Lego League teams, another program which stresses critical thinking, which both students participate in.
The Service Learning Award includes $4,000 for JMS to build a larger version of the students’ dome, which the school intends to use as a greenhouse. The project will include the entire eighth-grade class, as well as parents and volunteers from the community. The money goes toward the purchase of a kit to assemble the structure.
The Service Learning Awards were presented by Karen Baldacci, with representatives from the Maine Commission for Community Service and Time Warner Cable, who run the program. The awards, an annual event, typically focus on the so-called STEM disciplines; science, technology, engineering and math.
The greenhouse will be built to the south of the school.
