Students from Signal Mountain Middle/High School are celebrating their success at the National Technology Student Association and Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science competitions held recently in Orlando, Fla.
TSA is a nonprofit organization for middle and high school students focused on science, technology, engineering and math. Competitions involve a wide range of events, from digital photography to catapult design, in which participants work individually or in groups.
TEAMS is a group competition sponsored by TSA that always has an engineering theme and involves an engineering scenario for participants to solve, said TEAMS faculty advisor Kathy McCormack.
The recent competitions welcomed about 6,000 student competitors from across the nation.
In the middle school TSA competition, Mary Barton West, Sophie Burk and Stephanie Xian scored fifth in Leadership Strategies, and Caroline Burns scored seventh in Prepared Speech. High school TSA competitors Jack Dowling, Dana McCormack and Natalie Taggart scored seventh in Engineering Design, and Natalie, Gaddiel Morales and Tamjeed Azad placed sixth in System Control Technology.
The students' success at the TEAMS competition started before they even left.
This is the first year SMMHS has had three teams qualify to compete at nationals for TEAMS, and the first year the school has sent a middle school team.
It's also the first time a team has placed in the top 10 in the nation overall and the first time a team has placed first in the nation in the essay portion of the competition, McCormack said.
"It's a big deal that two out of three teams placed nationally," she said.
The middle school team, composed of Carson Bock, Sophie Burk, Eleanor Alley, Karina Perez and Caroline Burns, placed 10th in the prepared presentation portion of the competition, ninth for problem solving, eighth in the written competition and 10th overall.
One of the high school teams - composed of Dana McCormack, Natalie Taggart, Jack Dowling, Tamjeed Azad, Angie Church, Gaddiel Morales and Aidan Newton - placed fifth in problem solving and sixth in the written competition.
For the TEAMS competition, participants worked in groups to compose a written essay about solving the problem of food deserts around the world. They also prepared a presentation on a testing method and community relations plan for potable water for a fictional town in Bangladesh, including a timeline and projected cost. The problem-solving portion involved designing an air filter and solving engineering math problems.
To prepare for the presentation portion of the competition, students went on a tour of Tennessee American Water Company led by water quality and environmental compliance specialists Logan Elmore and Lauren Gambino. Students also spoke with TVA Senior Program Manager Lindy Johnson to brainstorm ideas for their presentation, said McCormack.
"It helps make it more real for the kids to get to see how things are actually done as part of their research," she said.
Rising ninth-grader Carson Bock is captain of the middle school team that placed in the TEAMS national competition. While she has participated in TSA since the sixth grade, this was her first time competing in TEAMS, and she said the tour of TAWC was helpful in their success at the competition.
"I had no clue how water filtration worked at all, and I got to see how it works and relates to STEM stuff we're doing every day," she said, adding that she's also used knowledge gleaned from TSA and TEAMS to help her solve problems in class.
Carson said TSA helped get her into some of her favorite hobbies, such as photography, and encourages anyone at the school with an interest in STEM to get involved.
In addition to being introduced to real-world issues related to engineering, benefits of participating in TEAMS include learning to speak in front of an audience and working with others to solve problems, said McCormack.
"I really think it offers the kids a lot of opportunities and they learn a lot of things they wouldn't have in the traditional school curriculum," she said.
Participation in both TSA and TEAMS increased this past school year, said McCormack. She credits this, in part, to holding sign-ups earlier, at the beginning of the year during registration, which the school is doing again this year, she added.