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Justin Travis | The News Courier. SPARK Academy's K-3 Math Coach Amanda Elgin teaches students about the Bridge Challenge Friday, Jan. 24.

Justin Travis | The News Courier. A teacher at SPARK Academy helps a group of students with their Bridge Challenge Friday, Jan. 24.

Justin Travis | The News Courier. A teacher at SPARK Academy helps students measure 100 centimeters for the Bridge Challenge Friday, Jan. 24.

Justin Travis | The News Courier. Second and Third Grade students at SPARK Academy start the Bridge Challenge Friday, Jan. 24.

Justin Travis | The News Courier. K-3 Math Coach Amanda Elgin helps a student pick out materials for his Bridge Challenge at SPARK Academy Friday, Jan. 24.

Justin Travis | The News Courier. The exterior of SPARK Academy at Cowart Elementary pictured January 2025.

On Friday, Jan. 24, students at SPARK Academy at Cowart Elementary celebrated the school’s 100th day of learning with a pair of exciting STEM-focused activities that challenged the students to creatively apply their knowledge on science, technology, engineering and math.

“We are currently working on our STEM recertification, so instead of just doing a dress up day — we wanted to have a day that incorporates all of the aspects of STEM,” Amanda Elgin, the Kindergarten through Third Grade math coach at SPARK, told The News Courier. “We want to constantly reinforce all the fun things they’ve learned so far this year, and we felt like this would be a great way to do that.”

Kindergarten and First Graders participated in a special “Tower Challenge” where the younger students worked together to construct a tower using 100 two-ounce cups after reading One Hundred Hungry Ants.

Not only did the activity incorporate key skills such as counting, measuring and estimation, but it also introduced the students to the collaborative and cooperative engineering design process as they built their towers together.

While that was going on, Second and Third Graders engaged in a “Bridge Challenge” where they were separated into groups and then tasked to build a 100 centimeter long bridge capable of supporting 100 pennies or 100 grams of weight.

Math skills, like budgeting and measurement, along with valuable engineering principles were on full display throughout the activity as teams designed their bridge using popsicle sticks, tape and index cards.

“We know that students learn best when there are multiple modalities used,” Elgin said. “Getting them to build things with their hands as opposed to doing regular lessons on paper is so important. We also want to emphasize to our students that when something fails they can always regroup and try again — that perseverance and that grit is what’s going to push them to go far in the future.”

The older students at SPARK Academy at Cowart Elementary recently studied the importance of support beams and triangles to strengthen bridges. These STEM-focused lessons have been able to get students to think outside of the box when it comes to learning the basics like math and science, while also advocating the importance of collaboration and communication.

“You can either celebrate the achievement of reaching 100 days, or you can celebrate putting all the skills that you’ve learned so far to work,” Athens City Schools Superintendent Beth Patton, who cheered on the students as they completed their challenges, said. “It’s so interesting to see them enjoy all these things that we want them to learn. I’m having a lot of fun seeing them get so excited about learning.”