A team of Chapin High School students won the national championship in a literary storytelling competition during the Technology Student Association National Conference earlier this month in Nashville, Tenn.
The team of Celeste Casarez, Lertchaal Hale and Sarah Willis earned first place out of 134 teams in the Children’s Stories category — a competition that asks students to spend months drafting, writing, illustrating and publishing a literary work aimed at promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education to young students.
Chapin’s team used their knowledge of STEM — as well as their research in educational philosophy, child development and writing — to create “Macy McNeer: The Little Engineer.”
The story is an original literary work detailing the lessons and successes of an aspiring engineer.
The story features hand-illustrated and computer-enhanced artwork by students and editing by Chapin High School English teachers. The EPISD Print Shop published the book.
“The story of Macy is amazing, because she invents many things that unfortunately don’t always work,” said Chapin engineering teacher Pamela Cook who co-sponsors the Husky TSA. “But along the way Macy learns many valuable lessons of perseverance, encouragement and achieving goals.”
Cook said the book also helps promote engineering and science among young girls.
Other Chapin teams also fared well at the Nashville conference.
The team of Casarez, Hale, Ray Hernandez, martin Lopez and Gabriel Marquez earned a third-place in the Digital Video Production category for their work on a thoroughly-researchedand well-produced story on social media bullying.
Also, Tim Kalavatis came in sixth in extemporaneous presentation, while Hale earned an eighth place in desktop publishing and ninth in promotional graphics.
