Your Photo of the Week: Tie Dye Turtles Found in Schnucks

The following article was submitted by the .

A group of Kirkwood School District (KSD) middle school students have developed a food safety tips bag that can now be found in the produce section at the . The group, also known as the Tie Dye Turtles Robotics team, is coached by parent Debbie Pitz and includes (NKMS) eighth graders Jenna Heaton, Katie Pitz and Jessie Sanford, NKMS sixth graders Meagan Biesiadecki and Emily Pitz and sixth grader Caroline Bartels. The team is sponsored by the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri troops 3179 and 1386.

The team developed the bags as an entry into the First Lego League (FLL) competition as part of Food Factor project. The Food Factor project requires each team to research a food safety problem and develop an innovative solution. The Tie Dye Turtles discovered through research and a survey of over 200 people, many do not wash their fruit before eating it. This puts people at risk to being exposed to bacteria that cause foodborne illness.

The team’s solution was to provide produce food safety tips on produce bags where the consumer will read the bags and learn how to wash, prepare, and store produce to avoid foodborne illness. As part of their research, the team took a tour of Schnucks and met with produce manager, Bob Berry. The team partnered with Schnucks and the bags can now be found in the produce department. Schnucks plans to distribute the bags in other locations in the near future.

The project earned the team the Champions award at the FIRST® LEGO® League qualifier competition at , University City, held on Nov. 19 and advanced to the Eastern Missouri Championship held at , Dec. 4, where they won the Inspiration Award.

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The Champions Award recognizes a team that embraces the FLL Core Value while achieving excellence and innovation in both the Robot Game and Project. The competition had 158 teams participating from the St. Louis area. More than 16,000 teams compete worldwide.

The Tie Dye Turtles Robotics team will have a robot demonstration at the KSD SciFest at , Feb. 25, from 1-3 p.m.

FLL is an international program for 9 to 14 year-old children created in a partnership between FIRST and The LEGO Group in 1998 to get children excited about science and technology – and teach them valuable employment and life skills. Using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technologies and LEGO Education materials, children work alongside adult mentors to design, build, and program autonomous robots and create an innovative solution to a problem as part of their research project.

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