Fourth Graders Enter Great Raft Race For Class Assignment

Would you trust your safety in the re-born Great Raft Race on a raft built by fourth graders?

That's what four teachers and the principal at Carnegie Elementary School are going to be doing for Labor Day.

Robin Emerson is the principal at Carnegie, and she said she has fond memories of the raft race.

"It's great to have it back, and great that our kids can do this," she said.

The students are using all their math, science and technology knowledge to build the raft. Student Terra Butuc said there’s a process.

"We talked in our groups about our designs and what we thought was successful, and what was not successful, and that's the engineering and design process," she said.

After all the trial and error, two students, Rayleigh and Emily, came up with similar designs - the raft built on five big barrels to provide the floatation.

The project involves all three fourth grade classes at Carnegie, and everyone has a piece of the action.

Principal Emerson and Ms. Essley said it’s the kind of learning the students should be doing - applying all they are learning to something real.

"What better way to do it than to build a boat that people are going to float on," Essley asked.

And what have they christened their little craft? Un-Titanic, 'cause they don’t want what happened to the first one to happen again.

They'll begin at 8:00 Monday morning in Sand Springs and float roughly eight miles down the Arkansas River to Tulsa’s River West Festival Park.