| This fall, Timothy Weinstein, the district's Gifted Coordinator, took a group of students from Wilkinsburg Middle School to compete in the "Creative Convention." The event was sponsored by the North Allegheny School District and included gifted students from Allegheny County who competed in small groups to complete a number of activities designed to stimulate creative problem-solving skills. Participating school districts included Montour, Pine Richland, Northgate, Riverview, North Allegheny, and Deer Lakes, among others. By participating in the competition, Wilkinsburg students were able to interface with students from different backgrounds, as well as evaluate their peers from outside of Wilkinsburg. Each school was permitted to bring two teams of four students each.
The theme of the Creative Convention this year was comedy. Activities for the students included compiling lists about types of comedy, writing limericks and building word pyramids, as well as creating and presenting a brief skit. In the skit, the students were required to show an idea or invention being discovered or created during prehistoric times. The setting must have, at some point, been inside a cave. Finally, the students worked together to see which group could construct the tallest structure using only 30 straws and one meter of tape. The hardest part of the last challenge was the requirement that the students work in complete silence, communicating only with body gestures.
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