Third place?
National competition?
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Wilbraham & Monson Academy first-year student Emma Feeley '21, along with two classmates from her previous school, placed third in the SchoolsNEXT Design Competition, a contest that asks students to build and shape classrooms of the future.
"We had to design a preschool classroom, but also keep in mind we had a $2 million budget," Emma explained. "We had to know where we would put it and how we would do it. We had to have several sources. We talked to architects, teachers and parents. We had to make a slideshow, two Google SketchUp models and a physical model. We had to give a presentation and had outside judges come in to judge us."
Emma and her group won the school competition as well as the regional contest to advance to the national round. They received an Award of Commendation, with SchoolsNEXT noting the team addressed "the economy and society of the future, enabling them to master the skills they need to take on the challenges of a world defined by change."
"A lot of times, classrooms are built with the teachers' needs and wants in mind, instead of the students, which is why we did what we did," Emma said. "We didn't put anything in that we felt wasn't necessary. We thought of students first.
"We were proud of how we did. It helped us learn how to work together as a group. We all had separate research points we had to do. But we all learned how to compromise into one project."