Russell Students Win at MESA Middle School Day Competition
Students from Colorado Springs School District 11’s Russell Middle School won three first place
trophies at Friday’s MESA Middle School Day Competition held at the University of Colorado,
Denver. Eleven students from Russell Middle School traveled to the competition where around 700
students from throughout the state converged on the P.E. Events Center to compete in events that included
paper towers, solar water stills, model rockets, math and logic problems, and biology quiz questions.
Weeks before the competition, Shelby Paxton worked hard to prepare a solar water still, a device meant to
filter water using the rays of the sun. The unfiltered water is poured into the enclosed container which
evaporates when heated by the sun. A sheet of sanded glass traps the heat from the sun and the
condensation of the evaporated water. The water then drips down the sheet into a collection tube, which
leads into an attached water bottle. Together with Amy Ghrayyeb, Shelby gave an oral presentation on the
design of her still, and with a 98% filtration success rate, won a first place trophy for her team’s efforts.
This was not the only trophy Paxton and Ghrayyeb managed to win. They also took part in the paper
tower challenge where students were given a single sheet of computer paper and three feet of tape with
the task of building the tallest free standing tower possible. Out of the three rounds of 15-20 teams each,
Paxton and Ghrayyeb constructed a structure that stood about half of a foot taller than a yard stick, over
40 inches! Even though the tower swayed in the ‘breeze’ of the ventilation system of the gym, it stood
erect, independently, for more than the 10 second requirement, winning them yet another first place
trophy.
The final story of success comes from three young men, Sergio Rivera, Armando Rivera, and Ben
Gunter. The day before the competition, they received the questions for the Bio Bowl, a contest
measuring knowledge of various science and biology questions. From a pool of 101 questions, the same
questions used at a high school competition earlier in the school year, judges would ask teams one of the
questions randomly selected. The teams then had to ‘buzz in,’ using a set of clickers, with the correct
answer. Teams competed in one of four qualifying rounds. The top five teams from each round moved to
the second round, and then the top five teams from the second round moved on to the final round. The
Russell team easily qualified to go into the second round of competition. The Rivera brothers and Ben
Gunter not only managed to get into the final round, but won the competition.
District 11 congratulates these students and all those from Russell who traveled to the MESA Middle
School day competition and represented not only Russell Middle School, but School District 11 with an
outstanding performance.