P.E. Wallace Middle School held their annual Gifted and Talented (GT) recycled boat races on Friday, May 12 at Town Lake in Mount Pleasant. Students in the 5th grade GT program could use cardboard, duct tape, and plastic trash bags to construct their boats while 6th grade GT students were allowed to use plastic bottles, duct tape, clear tape, nylon string, and zip ties. Each team had 3 hours on the morning of the race to construct their boats in teams that were predetermined by the instructor. Each boat was completely designed and built by the students with no adult assistance.

When it was time to race that afternoon, preliminary heats pitted a 5th grade boys’ boat against a 5th grade girls’ boat, each containing two team members. Each boat was tasked with paddling to a floating buoy out in the lake, tap it with their paddle, then race back to the shore. The team having the best time advanced to the next round. Preliminary heats continued with 6th grade boys vs. 6th grade girls.

After moments resembling Olympic level rowing and others looking more like the final scene between Rose and Jack in “Titanic”, the day belonged to the girls. The fifth-grade champion team included Jannahi Castro, Kaylee Delacruz, Lillian Henry, Scottlyn Lee, and Stephanie Mendoza. Winning the sixth-grade championship was the team of Zaydee Banda, Carolina Flores, Cristal Leyva, Juliet Luna, Ana Martinez, and Jassy Pena. More importantly the students learned teamwork, engineering, construction, and the importance of paying attention to the little details.

The Wallace GT program is under the direction of Tammy Davis.

Pictured-

1: Fifth grade champion team

2: Sixth grade champion team

3: Zoe Zuniga (front) and Aileen Sorto paddle back to shore

4: Zaydee Banda and Juliet Luna make the turn and head back

5: Macon Bradshaw (right) and Kelvin Garcia paddle toward the buoy

6: Karli Lowry (front) and Abigail Tolentino race back to the launch site