Alexander Dawson students learn ins and outs of entrepreneurship
The multimillionaires and billionaires on CNBC’s “Shark Tank” may want to take note of students at The Alexander Dawson School.
The private school’s middle school, 10845 W. Desert Inn Road, hosted its own version of the show Jan. 19, featuring projects from more than 12 sixth-graders. The event was part of the school’s strand curriculum, which has classes offering concentrated study while allowing students the freedom to tackle individualized projects.
Joshua Keilty, head of middle school, said the strand approach engages children with varied interests.
“We recognize there are many ways to access excitement in schools,” he said. “We wanted to provide both the motivation and the structure (for students) to take something and go far with it. We can open doors to the curriculum in a variety of ways.”
For the school’s GLO-MAR (Global Market) class expo, the students got to be entrepreneurs, coming up with a product or a service and presenting their idea in an elevator pitch to lure investment dollars.
The sixth-graders manned display tables in the library. Adults and third-graders were handed “money” to invest. Adults received $6,000 and the students $3,000. The money was quarter-sized and featured a picture of the teacher who spearheaded the project, Steve Gillis.
Sixth-grader Liam Cootey was inspired to create eyeglasses that had an automatic vacuum-like component and cleaned themselves. He said the idea stemmed from his own glasses getting dirty a lot. His demonstration product was a pair of dark frames.
“They have sensors, so when they get dirty, they can suck all the debris and dirt,” he said. “You can open up the glasses and empty out the dirt and everything. … You can’t even see the lenses because the lenses are so clean.”
Sixth-grader Morgan Mixer’s product was the Panta Towel, which attached three towels. The bottom two looked like pant legs.
“When I get out of the shower, I can’t dry my legs,” she said, explaining that the towel clung to her wet back. “So Panta Towel is just a towel with legs. You step in and wrap the towel around you and walk around to get dry. … My mom sewed it up because I can’t sew.”
Petite Boutique was the brainchild of sixth-grader Carmela Ferrence, who aspires to be a fashion merchandiser. Her idea came from being of small stature.
“I was laying in bed thinking, and my clothes — I have to shop at Justice, which has not very cool clothes,” she said. “They’re like 8-year-old’s clothes, and I am not big enough for clothes at normal stores, where people my age would shop at. So, I thought there should be hip clothes for people who are my size.”
Carmela had outfits hanging on a display behind her. They were from Forever 21, which she said had a limited section for small-sized people, but that her store would be “gigantic” and carry small clothes exclusively.
“I wouldn’t advertise in newspapers or on billboards, just social media, on YouTube and websites,” she said.
Sixth-grader Wesley Burk’s idea was an 18-inch guitar neck that attached to one’s phone so people could learn to play guitar any time, anywhere. He said the most fun part of the project was building the PowerPoint presentation.
Other student entrepreneurs were Noah Kissel, Elaine Zhang, Max Seiff, Payne Lounsbery, Maddie Berkely, Lydia Constantian, Sasha Kolchins and Sydney Byrne.
Teachers helped corral student “investors,” seeing that they heard from all the young entrepreneurs. After perusing the products, the investors turned their cash over to be tallied.
The winner was Maddie’s Green Co., with $92,000 received in venture capitalist funding. She envisioned the Green Co. to be an organic food business with locally grown produce and hybrid delivery vehicles, in keeping with its green mission statement.
There was a three-way tie for second place among Carmela, Sydney and Morgan.
This was the first year the school has subscribed to the strand program.
Contact Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 702-387-2949.
