Clark Fork students showcase track projects

CLARK FORK — From art to avalanche training, students at Clark Fork Junior/Senior High School showed off their semester projects during Friday's "Experiential Learning Track Showcase."

The student have five tracks to choose from each semester, including culinary track, arts track, tech track, outdoors track and independant track. Senior projects took place with a presentation and judging of the required independant projects Friday morning, followed by the showcase in which all grade levels participated.

"It's an opportunity for students to share with the public what they've been doing in the experiential learning track program," said Mike Turnlund, Clark Fork social studies instructor and learning track coordinator. "They did a project on whatever interested them, or something that they learned."

All the students had poster boards up explaining their projects, and some gave hands-on demonstrations, like tenth-grader Brandon DaVault. DaVault is in the culinary track, so he demonstrated to visitors of his table how to properly use a knife when dicing vegetables.

"The way you hold a knife, the best way, is to not have a firm grip," DaVault said.

He said to have a nice light grip, and the other hand should have fingers bent in where the knuckles are showing, but not to run the blade over the knuckles. Afterward, he demonstrated how to sharpen a knife on a "steel" at a 45-degree angle.

"And you always want to have a sharp knife," he said, demonstrating how a dull knife can crush a tomato, rather than properly slicing through it.

Some of the tech track students also brought their projects into the gym, but demonstrations would have required being outdoors. Tenth-grader Hunter Sutton showed off his SSR 125 pit bike, which he restored after it started burning oil, so he changed the piston and rings. When he put it back together, he said, it ran "like new." He also replaced the rear tire, he said. Sutton said he started the year working on his chainsaws in tech track, but decided to work on his pit bike recently when it "started turning into a pile of junk."

Waylon Riggins, seventh grade, explained his tech track project — a 50cc pocket bike that he picked up for $20 from a man who was riding it down the highway in the rain one day. It looks a bit rough, but after fixing the carburetor, throttle and the fuel and air intake, he said it runs good, topping out at about 30 miles per hour.

Some of the students did group projects, like seventh-grader Ember Montgomery, and eighth-graders Abbey Greer and Shyla Jones, who started out their project with an attempt at making a music video. After some technical difficulties, the group changed tactics and did a presentation on filmmaking and editing, which included the use of a drone. The girls said it took practice to learn to fly the drone, and also to get clear images with its camera.

In the art track, ninth-grader Chelle Bonine said they were required to have a maximum of three art pieces for the showcase. Before winter break, she said, the students were given about a day-and-a-half to do their own "signature art piece," she said.

Local artists specializing in different mediums led the art track in four-week blocks throughout the semester, including painting, silks, and other creative ideas, such as making outfits out of different materials like plastic bags.

The son of Kelly Price, an artist specializing in silks who led the class in October, came in and taught the students how to do street art as well.

The outdoors track included projects from some of the things the students have done this year, such as when the group decommissioned part of a Scotchman Peak trail.

Tenth-grader Lily Simko made a model of the mountain as part of her project. Kobi Dooley, ninth grade, demonstrated how to use a Pulaski for his project, which he used while helping decommission the trail. He said it is a tool often used by firefighters, but can also be used for trails or even in a garden.

Tenth-grader Grace Shelton did her outdoor track project on avalanche safety.

"I find it to be very important because anyone can get caught in an avalanche, so it's good to know what to do if you are there, or if a friend gets caught in an avalanche," Shelton said.

Ninth-grader Mathis Heisel, eleventh-grader Wade Stevens and tenth-grader Theo Icardo also did an avalanche safety project and said the outdoor track group went to Schweitzer last week for training, where they learned how to use transceivers and saw a trained search dog in action. 

Although students have the option of changing tracks each semester, many of the students interviewed said they want to stay where they are. 

"It's super fun," Simko said about the outdoor track. "I think, eventually, we might end up doing an individual track ... but for now this is really fun."