Wisdom Lane Students Sweep Essay Contest

Press release from SyntaxNY:

May 22 2020

Three Levittown students from Wisdom Lane Middle School’s Earth and Space Club were recently recognized as Long Island winners for their outstanding submissions in a student essay contest sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space Systems Technical Committee. Eighth grader Alex Gao earned first place, while eighth grader Dylan Muterspaw and seventh grader Ashley Wilson took home second and third place, respectively, for their grade levels. The students will receive a total of $600 between them for their efforts. Gao and Wilson’s essays will move on to compete at the national level for a chance to win another cash prize and be recognized in AIAA’s international Aerospace America magazine.

Under the guidance of science teachers Leslie Maynard and Vanessa Kowalczyk, members of Wisdom Lane Middle School’s Earth and Space Club have submitted entries into the essay contest each year since 2015. At least one Wisdom Lane student has won every year at the local level and some have been crowned national winners. This year, the students were prompted to write an essay of 1,000 words or less answering the following questions – “How advanced can you envision space technology and exploration through the next 50 years? What do we need to do NOW to achieve that?” The essay theme changes each year, but the judging criteria remains the same. Student participants are critiqued on original idea, soundness of logic used to develop their ideas, realism of their ideas and the quality of composition.

The Levittown Public Schools congratulates these three students on their achievement.

This press release was produced by SyntaxNY. The views expressed here are the author’s own.