Port Jefferson 5th Graders Get Lessons In Engineering

PORT JEFFERSON, NY — Fifth-grade students in Port Jefferson’s Edna Louise Spear Elementary School have been learning the engineering design process, the school district announced.

The kids used their skills to construct pompom launchers made from straws, popsicle sticks, tape, string, and plastic cups. They then tested to see how far their experiments could shoot the pompoms.

As engineers, they examined the materials they could use, came up with their designs and moved on to building, testing, modifying and testing again. The students in Kari Costanzo’s class conducted an informal contest to see who developed the simplest and cheapest one (Nina Gnatenko), the sturdiest one (Kemp Garrett) and the one that went the farthest (Clara Pearce).