September 12 will be a memorable day for seven Lake Orion students, who will get to meet Sally Ride, the first US woman astronaut in space.
Students Jessica LaBond, Alex Kelly, Lauren Zachrich, Jackie Steimel, Erinn Gustafson, Saleen Guest and Taylor Mergele have been invited to display a game they developed for the 2004 Toy Challenge and to attend the Sally Ride Science Festival for fifth-eighth grade girls at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Mergele has been a member of the online Sally Ride Science Club for more than a year, and when they announced the Toy Challenge in one of their newsletters, she put together a team of friends, combined from Oakview and Scripps Middle School. They developed, designed and submitted a board game based on geography.
Their diligent effort will pay off when they see Sally Ride in person and attend the science workshops held during the one-day festival.
‘We are so excited to go,? said Gustafson. ‘I never thought I was into science, but this is fun.?
The Lake Orion girls will get to display the game they developed for the 2004 Toy Challenge during the Street Fair at the festival.
‘We really wanted to come up with a gas tank for each player that would somehow show liquid decreasing each turn, and then fill back up again when they stopped at a gas station,? said Zachrich. ‘But we ran out of time so we designed a paper gas tank that gives the same idea.?
‘We had so much fun last year working on our game that we can’t wait to start working on the 2005 Toy Challenge,? said Kelly.
All the girls are seventh-graders; Steimel, and Gustafson are from Scripps; while the rest of the girls are from Oakview.