Students in Socorro Independent School District’s Gifted and Talented (GT) program presented their innovative projects, including robotics, board games, and an ancient Egypt-inspired escape room at the districtwide GT Showcase conducted in April 2024.
A large crowd gathered outside the escape room created by Salvador H. Sanchez Middle School students. They had set up a brick wall backdrop adorned with Egyptian hieroglyphs under a canopy to replicate the inside of a pyramid. Participants had 10 minutes to find clues using props like the “Book of the Dead,” canopic jars, and ancient Egyptian symbols to solve puzzles and successfully “escape” the room.
Levitte Buenrostro, an eighth-grader at Sanchez Middle School, and her teammates were thrilled to showcase their ancient Egypt-themed project.
“It's very exciting, you know, for us to show you our thinking skills and our imagination,” said Buenrostro. “It’s a really great experience to even be here!”
The GT Showcase, organized by SISD's Advanced Academics department, provided an opportunity for GT students to exhibit the projects they worked on throughout the year to the community. The projects spanned a wide range of topics, from instruments made from recycled materials to history exhibits presented at the Texas History Day competition, and more.
“Our GT students really go above and beyond,” said Nancy Franklin, Advanced Academics coordinator. “This gives them that ability to show projects to the community, to have a more outside look at what they're doing rather than just within the classroom.”
Eighth-grader Amaiya Kern and her teammates at SSG Manuel R. Puentes Middle School demonstrated their architectural skills by presenting a scale model of the interior of a restaurant they designed, named “High Royalty Dining.” The model featured miniature soda bottles, cups, bowls, cupcakes, men’s and women’s restrooms, a dress-up station with colorful gowns, and a birthday party area.
“I never thought that we would make it as detailed as the floor plan came out to be,” said Kern, who has been in the GT program since elementary school. “But once we stuck to it and got our main idea down, it was just easy from there.”
Rodrigo Perez, an eighth grader at Montwood Middle School, showcased the robot he and his robotics club competed with at the FIRST Tech Challenge.
Perez, who has been involved in robotics for four years, plans to become a software engineer. He said the showcase was an opportunity to demonstrate the hard work he and his teammates have put into robotics.
“It was nice being able to teach other people and inspire them, too,” Perez said.