Four Sacajawea Students Win National Science Competiton

Tue., May 2, 1995

Carla K. Johnson Staff writer

Four Spokane eighth-graders won a national award for their vision of wheelchair technology in the future.

Eleanor Tripp, Rachelle Colquhoun, Julie Weatherred and Nicole Riches each will receive a $10,000 savings bond and a trip to Washington, D.C., in early June to pick up their award.

“It took a while for it to sink in. We were jumping up and down,” Tripp said.

The students designed a wheelchair that walks upstairs. They wrote a 10-page report explaining the breakthroughs needed before it could be built.

The report won the regional competition. For the national level, they produced a videotape with help from KSPS, Spokane’s public television station.

“We made our video like a futuristic news broadcast set in 2015,” Tripp said. “We went to Civic Theatre and got sparkly shirts.”

The Sacajawea Middle School students won the grades 7-9 division of the ExploraVision competition sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and Toshiba Corp.

Nearly 20,000 students entered.

The winners are students of science teacher Virginia Ledgerwood.

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