Students from Grand Avenue and Merrick Avenue Middle School competed in an inter-district Hack-a-Thon on March 10.

Led by technology teacher Michelle Biancardo at Grand Avenue and Dan Stiglitz at Merrick Avenue, the timed skills competition involved 20 coding students. Eighth grader Dillon Hopp from Grand Avenue took first place and achieved credit for the python code challenge.

Eight students will advance to the KidOYO Junior Division Hack-a-Thon on March 31 at Bethpage High School. This event is a coding competition between 11 schools on Long Island.

They will compete to take over territories on a map in which the theme is always a surprise.

“Each territory is a coding challenge that can be in Scratch, Python, HTML or other languages,” Biancardo explained. “The goal is to take over as many territories in the three-hour competition as possible.”

Winners will receive a trophy that stays at their school for the year and the option to host the competition the next year.

Date Added: 3/16/2023

Students in Denise Schleith’s seventh grade French classes at Merrick Avenue Middle School became engineers during a March 7 lesson. Using dried spaghetti and marshmallows they recreated the Eiffel Tower.

These world language learners brainstormed ideas before setting off on their task and used a wire model for reference.

“We worked on a reading about the Eiffel Tower prior to the challenge and I thought this would be a great exercise in team building,” Schleith said.“Students learned to problem solve and work together to achieve a goal.”

Date Added: 3/8/2023