Left to right: Jordan Farley, Julia Miller, Taylor Parker, Sarah Richards, Seth Lancaster, Alyssa Lamp, Alex Krunich, Karly Nemeth, Rachel Cadell, Alexandra Davis (teacher) and Amelia McCulloch.

Eco Challenge

The Hanahan Middle School team was one of the two middle schools to win the Eco Challenge in the southern region for Challenge 2. The Eco Challenge is a national competition sponsored by Lexus where students create and implement an environmental service project in their community (www.scholastic.com/lexus). The Hanahan team will receive $10,000 in prize money and will be competing in the grand prize round against other middle schools nationwide.

The school will receive $2,000, the teacher sponsor will receive $1,000 for the classroom, and each student will receive $700. Team members include 8th graders Rachel Caddell, Jordan Farley, Alex Krunich, Alyssa Lamp, Seth Lancaster, Amelia McCulloch, Julia Miller, Karly Nemeth, Taylor Parker, and Sarah Richards. The teacher sponsor is Alexandra Davis, a 7th grade science teacher at HMS. The winning project was called "Hanahan Blackout" which focused on energy conservation.

With a proclamation from the Hanahan Mayor, from 12-1 p.m. on January 8 we turned off the lights in our school and measured the energy consumption. Other businesses and families participated in this event as well. We also encouraged energy conservation by placing reminders on all light switches and TVs in the school, as well as establishing a Web site for students to register CFL lightbulbs in their home.

The team is invited to participate in the final challenge against other winning schools across the country for a grand prize of $30,000. The new topic for the grand prize competition will be related to wetland habitat restoration and oysters. There are a few main parts of our project. The team is partnering with DNR’s SCORE project (http://score.dnr.sc.gov/) and will be bagging oyster shells on February 27. On that same day, we will be attending the Hanahan Exchange Club’s annual oyster roast in the afternoon to distribute brochures that they created as well as collect the shells. This will be done again at the Santee Canal Park oyster roast on March 13. The team will also create a flyer and information sheet to give to marinas across the lowcountry to make them aware of this issue and post on the docks.

The team’s slogan is, "Reduce your wake, for the oyster’s sake!" The team is working on an informational powerpoint, which they will present at their next PTA meeting. They are also creating a youtube video and facebook group site. Lastly, they will be teaming with DNR again to do some water monitoring in our community. NATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR GATEWAY TO TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM

Hanahan Middle School received national recognition for the Gateway To Technology (GTT) Project Lead The Way program that it has been offering since 2007. Project Lead The Way (PLTW), the nation’s leading provider of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education offers a rigorous curriculum that allows students to apply what they are learning in math and science class to real-life engineering and technology projects. A National Business Roundtable report states that to remain competitive in the global marketplace, America needs to graduate 400,000 science, engineering, mathematics and technical four year degrees annually, yet we are currently graduating only 265,000. PLTW is providing students with a foundation and proven path to college and career success in these areas. 

The primary purposes of the national recognition program are to recognize schools that have successfully demonstrated a commitment to the quality national standards of the GTT program.

Teachers are a critical component of the success of the PLTW program. All teachers are required to complete an intensive two week professional development course during the summer before they can teach the GTT course. Students who continue on the PLTW track in high school also benefit from the organization’s strong university and industry relationships that allow students to begin working toward their college degree and gain valuable experience through internships and local business.

HMS teacher Sandra Parker added, "The beauty of PLTW courses is that our kids get to experience how a formula they learned in math applies to a real project. In class, there are no lectures – kids are building, developing and creating. That is the kind of hands-on experience that will engage more students in fields that they might otherwise never consider."