NY Leadership Conference - Day 6

   Everyone was up early for our last day in NY. The kids had to be "plane packed" and ready to roll, early. On our way to the Summit campus, we were able to see quite a bit of pretty scenery. We also enjoyed a few inside jokes! The students on our bus were definitely becoming friends. The students headed off to their innovation teams to continue work on their prototypes and teachers took a class on how TED ED can be utilized  in the classroom. Bus 1 teachers, took the time to address a cause close to our hearts, chanting on the bus! :). Then, we were finally able to see the kids again. Teachers were then asked to provide feedback to students in specific rooms on their projects. I was assigned to the light blue group (where we had 3 students working) just got lucky I guess! The student groups would provide a pre-practiced pitch for one minute. Our responsibilities were to provide 3 bits of information: I like that, I wish that, what if you? We watched all four groups in the light blue room primarily. Then we watched after they made changes based on our feedback. Some groups were better at making changes, than others. Students and group leaders then watched final pitches and completed a rubric. The team I had intended to get my vote, didnt score highest on the rubric! I'm not even sure how that happened. All groups were scored on: innovation, effectiveness, presentation of pitch, and did the product address communication. We all broke for lunch, and no one was told who were the room winners!! The suspense was hard for all of us. I was listening in to some conversations at lunch, and the kids were even reflecting on pitches, things like, "man we didnt really talk long enough." I was able to use this time to also count and see how many of the NY 9 followed directions and were wearing their orange travel shirts!
  Following lunch, we reconvened as a large summit group and learned of the 4 finalist groups! Team 2 from navy group with a product called, Procrasti-Go. (with our Leah) Team 7 from the pink group, with product, Spot (with our Nate). Blue rooms winner, team 12 with product, Personal Trainer Assistant. (with our Claire). Team purple with team 15, product Anxiety VR. (lead by our Caleb) We heard final pitches from all groups on the big stage. Our students were amazing during presentations! We then took time to hear our keynote speaker of the day, Soledad O' Brien. Soledad spoke of how she used communication to propel herself forward in a male dominated field. She was inspirational and passionate. She was also, to be one of the finalist judges for the projects! Following her speech, we had a mini dance party while the judges deliberated. We waited for the winner to be announced! Team 12 with Personal Trainer Assistant won!! This team had our very own Claire!! They were given medals by Soledad! The EFexplore america page has a video of the winning pitch.
    From the Summit, we went directly to the airport. We took alot of time to say goodbye to our new Texas and Arkansas friends. I heard alot of, "I'm going to miss you so much"'s.  We flew out of NY this time, vs. NJ last time, so navigating the construction at Laguardia was more difficult than we had imagined. I was thankful we had extra time. We rode various airport shuttles to finally make it to our gate. We had a rough run in with TSA at security. A couple of the boys had purchased souvenirs that werent allowed to be carried on. One student and I stayed behind to figure this all out. Though the worker sure had some things to say about my kids. :l We were able to check a bag with all the 'not allowed' items and luckily made it through to the rest of our group. By this time, they were starting to show signs of major tiredness, giggles, constant laughing, etc. We played some games in the airport while we waited. Then finally headed to St. Louis. St. Louis handed us a 2 hour lay over and a 1 hour delay due to weather and baggage issues but we made it through. We often boarded the plane later in the boarding process, so the kids were always picking which middle seat seemed like the best fit for them, myself included. Some of their 'middle seat' stories are pretty hilarious! We made it home an hour late and very sleepy, but we sure made memories!

Theres Alex's house -way out in the pond!