[USMA:31159] http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/176884-2831-014.html

[Euric]

Serving Hamilton and Boone counties and areas of Madison and Marion counties fishers Olympics makes metrics fun Students take part in events like cotton ball shot put to finish up weeklong study unit. Hannah Pierce (left) and Tyler White weigh a container of marbles to determine a competitor's standing in the right-handed marble grab in the Mini Metric Olympics at Sand Creek Intermediate School. Every fifth-grader competed in at least one event. -- AJ Mast / The Star   By Holly VanSlambrook Star correspondent 2004-09-08   Daniel Rees raised a cotton ball shot put to his right ear, positioned his palm upward and catapulted. The cotton ball traveled 67 centimeters and earned Daniel, 11, a gold medal in last week's Mini Metric Olympics at Sand Creek Intermediate School in the Hamilton Southeastern district. "It's light, and it catches the air so it didn't go very far," Daniel said, posing with silver and bronze medal winners for a photograph. More than 500 fifth-graders participated in the competition that capped off a weeklong metrics unit. They rotated to five simulated Olympic events in teams with names like Super Stars, Team USA, Froglegs and Jagtans (a combination of jaguars and titans). Some students competed in each event, with everyone participating in at least one. Classmates predicted winners and measured results. They used yardstick-like meter sticks to measure centimeters in the shot put, paper plate discus and drinking straw javelin events. Triple beam balances measured grams in the right-handed marble grab, and graduated cylinders recorded milliliters in the left-handed sponge squeeze. One centimeter equals just under one-half inch, one gram is about the weight of a paper clip, and about five milliliters equal one teaspoon. Hannah Pierce, 11, took the gold for throwing a drinking straw more than 466 centimeters. Alaina Werling, 10, captured a gold for squeezing 115 milliliters of water from a purple sponge into a plastic container. Tyler Lehnerz, 10, won a silver medal for his cotton ball throw of about 60 centimeters. "It's OK. You don't expect to win everything," he said. Science teachers on five fifth-grade teams, dressed in improvised togas of various fabrics and laminated paper olive branch crowns, guided students with instructions at each event. "Elbows up, palms up, catapult," teacher Kathy Giunta told shot put throwers, and counseled, "Pick it up, one squeeze, put it back," during the sponge squeeze. "This is a fun way to tie metrics into the Olympics," said teacher Kirsten Toner, herding students between paper plate discus and cotton ball shot put events. The unit combined daily Olympic history trivia with lessons about metric length, mass and volume measurement. It fulfilled a portion of state standards for measurement and capitalized on students' interest in last month's Olympic Games in Athens. "I watched a lot of swimming, diving and gymnastics," said Gwen Debaun, 11. Gwen won a silver medal in the marble grab by transferring 66.1 grams of clear glass marbles between containers. It also familiarized students with what real-life scientists do, Giunta said. "They need to know metrics because scientists (in any field) only use the metric system."