By SERINA MARSHALL Staff Writer
smarshall@heraldandtribune.com
Third-graders at Boones Creek Elementary School can now add “published author” to their resumes before they even go to middle school.
“Last year, we got students together and one of the things we had to do in second grade was learn to do some research,” said second grade teacher Jennifer Johnson. “We also had many famous people that we had to learn about. So, I gave my students the opportunity to go ahead and choose from a list of inventors and collectively we put together a published book entitled ‘Who Invented That?’”
Each student working on the book had to put together a project, and once the project was completed, they had to do public speaking in front of their classmates as well, Johnson said.
“They had to present the project,” she continued. “From there, they took the information they had from their project and they collectively created a book about inventors and their importance and the importance of the invention and how that invention made things easier on us today.”
Johnson explained that each student got to choose their inventor based on something that was near and dear to their heart.
Four students, Colby Moffitt, Lauren Carr, Kaylee Fields and Kinsey Oxendine, read their part of the book – educating on John Deere, Thomas Edison and Mary Anderson.
“If you didn’t know this, it was Dr. Arnold Cadish who invented the insulin pump. The child who chose that, it was important to her to find out more because her father is a diabetic and has an insulin pump,” Johnson explained. “She knew why he needed it, but with her doing the background information she got to learn a little bit more.
“There was another story that was interesting to most of the students. This was the fact that William Addis invented the toothbrush. We use the toothbrush all the time and the first toothbrush- es were actually made of bone and wire.”
Johnson said that the students received the opportunity to learn about a plethora of inventors and become published authors.
“The coolest thing about this is that one of the top 10 things people are asked when they are older is ‘What do you wish you had done?’ and they say they wish they had become a published author,” Johnson said. “And at the age of seven and eight, these children did.”
The book will also be available Johnson City Public Library.