BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) – One by one Tuesday afternoon, about a dozen Holston View Elementary fifth-grade students stepped through a curtain into a dimly lit room and gave their best product pitch to a steely-eyed panel with questions aplenty.
It marked the opening day for Holston View’s version of “Shark Tank” 2022, complete with theme music from the popular TV show. The project was the creation of fifth-grade teachers Jill Berthold, Diana Bush and Victoria Lamkin.
“We started this a few years ago when Mrs. Bush went to a target-based learning session,” Berthold said. “This group of kids was given a rubric and sent on their way. These projects are their inventions and innovations – they are all theirs. It meant something to them.”
Products pitched included everything from a “smart” softball and a special football air pump to a picture frame that displays photos from a smart phone, a tray for organizing essentials for the injured or elderly, a jacket with a solar panel to keep the wearer warm, a cool pillow and a device to draw or sketch on a tablet or computer and project the image onto the ceiling.
Student Jackson Walden went so far as to display the design of his “magno ball” basketball on the t-shirt he was wearing.