EdCom Showcases Student AchievementMore than 750 students from Warsaw Community Schools, Lakeland Christian Academy and Sacred Heart participated in the ninth annual EdCom Saturday at Warsaw Community High School.
Students in elementary, middle and high school gave presentations during the 3-1/2-hour event on a variety of subjects from deer to diversity in Warsaw to World War II and the Holocaust.
Guest speaker during the opening ceremony was Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett.
He praised WCS for being ahead of the game in project-based learning and for the support it gets from teachers, parents and the community.
Bennett said that for Indiana students to be the best they can be in the nation and world, every student needs to have a PHD - passion, hunger and drive.
"It's not a degree, it's a mindset," he said.
The second thing students need, he said, is for their skill and their will to succeed to match. At EdCom, Bennett said, students were presenting their skill. The students need to have a will to match that.
He thanked the students for their work, and the teachers, parents and community for supporting the students.
"My hats off to the community of Warsaw," he said. "You're doing it in the right way."
WCS Assistant to the Superintendent Chris Gensinger told everyone in attendance that EdCom is a day to celebrate student learning.
"I'm prepared to be awed by your work," Gensinger told the students. He encouraged everyone to go to as many of the presentations as possible.
"Let's celebrate with our kids today and give them a round of applause," Gensinger said.
Before the students and patrons were released to the presentations, the EdCom shirt color was revealed as purple, and the slide show of students' work was played.
EdCom started in 2001 in the Edgewood Middle School gym with 200 Warsaw students participating. After the second year of EdCom, it moved to the high school. It is a celebration of students' learning over the past school year.
EdCom starts in the Tiger Den with an opening ceremony, much like that of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Students march in with their schools, holding up their schools flags.
Terry Roe, WCS director of curriculum assessment and EdCom organizer this year, thanked the scholarship sponsors who provide scholarship for high school presenters. The sponsors include Embarq, Hand Family Foundation Inc., K21 Health Foundation, Kappa Kappa Kappa Inc., Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club and Warsaw Education Foundation.
One of the first presentations was by WCHS students Deon Shafer and Kyle Tucker. Their presentation was titled "Final Chapters: Legacies of the World War II Generation."
The two young men traveled to Hawaii over Christmas break for the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. While there, they interviewed WWII veterans about their lives and videotaped the interviews. The duo also have recorded area veterans' memories of the war, put them on the Web site and sent them on to the Library of Congress.
"We have so many local heroes whose stories don't get told," Tucker said.
For more about the WWII Veterans History Project, visit online at http://www.hofferthistoryclass.com/Mr._Hofferts_Class_Website/Welcome.html
Shafer said they wanted to leave a legacy for future generations so WWII veterans would not be forgotten. Along with their teacher Dave Hoffert, Tucker and Shafer have written a book. The book includes interviews with 16 of the veterans.
Meanwhile at EdCom, there was a presentation on the journey of Lewis & Clark, and the second annual Eisenhower Famous Hoosier Wax Museum was in the WCHS Performing Arts Center Black Box Theatre.
Lakeview Middle School students displayed their science fair projects in one of the upper decks of the Tiger Den. Mathematics projects from Edgewood Middle School students were on display in the other upper deck.
Mary Southworth and Kristen Murdock presented their project on "Dog Intelligence: Golden Retrievers against Labrador Retrievers." Dillon Hand and Andrew Cox did their science project on "Forces on an Airplane." Hand and Cox, with the help of their parents, built their own wind machine.
Sacred Heart fifth-grader Ina LaGrandeur had her project titled "Float or Sink" out, too. She asked if an egg could float in salt water. Her conclusion was that an egg can float in salt water if the density of the salt water was greater than the density of the egg.
Those were just some of the presentations and projects available for the public to view this year.
