Bombs away at Highland Elementary

Staff Writer

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Fifth-grade teachers at Highland Elementary issued their students a challenge this week — build an apparatus that could protect an egg from a nearly 50-foot fall.

At the egg drop challenge Thursday, 11 of 54 students out of 54 succeeded with their contraptions.

“No way did we think 11 would survive 46 feet,” said fifth grade teacher Michelle Evans. “We were so thrilled and surprised at the same time.”

Evans said the eggs first had to survive a 20-foot fall before they could move on to the 46-foot fall.

Clovis Municipal Schools maintenance department brought out a skylift to assist the students in dropping the eggs at different heights.

Evans said the winning contraptions were made out of unexpected materials — one student stuck an egg down into the peanut butter in a plastic peanut butter jar. Another cut an egg form out of two car wash sponges and taped them together.

“It seemed like the simplest ones were more successful than the expensive ones,” said Amber Davis, an instructional coach at the school.

Evans said the kids were very excited to try out their contraptions Thursday morning.

“We were hoping they would take time to truly experiment with different materials at home and that they were really thinking about the construction of the apparatus,” Evans said. “They really surpassed our expectations.”

Evans said the winning students will get a can of Silly String for their prize.