Students Bring Honor and Awards Home to River Dell

For the past few months, students at River Dell have been busy bringing home awards for various accomplishments. On Monday night, the honored those students during a Student Recognition.

Under the tutelage of art teacher Mercedes Faunde, Shannon Hogan not only won $1,000 for herself but an additional $2,000 for the regional district by creating the winning T-shirt design for the Great American Smokeoff, an anti-smoking campaign, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, ENT and Allergy Associates, LLP (ENTA) and The Mount Sinai Medical Center.

The design, a black shirt with artwork of a pair of lungs, includes the motto "Black is not the New Pink." According to principal Lorraine Brooks, REBEL will be selling Hogan's t-shirt for $20.

The debate team spent the past few months earning additional trophies to fill their already full display case.

"We have 43 students who participate," advisor Rachel Geschwind said. "They competed in seven tournaments and brought home six trophies and placed fourth out of 17 in the County."

This year the debate team argued in favor of space exploration and next fall will turn their attention to transportation infrastructure.

In their first year of existence, Dr. Chin Chu's Invention Club has set lofty goals and is already accomplishing a great deal. So far with their three ongoing projects, students are researching how to utilize kinetic energy to charge cell phones, transform fresh water out of seawater and test the educational capabilities of a Microsoft Kinect system. The last project is funded by a PTO grant for $750.

"The sky and their imagination is the limit," Chu said. "This will become a platform for students to dream big, practice and go into scientific engineering.

In its second year STEM has continued to grow by leaps and bounds, competing at a state tournament each year. Also known as the Robotics club, STEM spends the year constructing and perfecting a robot to perform a required task.

"This year has been about connecting with the community and having them learn about the club," senior Eric Almberg said. "We went into the middle school and showed them how the robot could place a ball into a crate and then lift that as high as possible into the air."

Next fall, River Dell will offer a robotics course to students.

Once again the Academic Decathalon was a main competitor not only in their region but the state as well.  The team placed fourth overall in regions with 17 individual titles.

"We have daily meetings for two hours a day and begin studying in September for our first competition in February," advisor Jeff Williams said. "They compete in calculus, public speaking, essay writing and even identifying distinct style differences in music and sculptures."

Later this spring the Board will recognize several additional student achievements.