Two of Bowling Green’s PACE students showed what they’ve learned this past year at Tuesday’s board of
education meeting.
Chloe Sands, a fourth-grader at Crim Elementary, gave a presentation on “Charlie Chaplin, and Jordan
Schuman, a sixth-grader at the middle school, talked about “Puddingstones.”
The PACE program serves students in grades 3-6 and offers an educational program especially designed to
provide the learning needs of the most academically able students through greater depth and complexity
of concept, faster pace, time for independent study, and concentration on higher levels of thinking
skills.
Both students used a video and Sands even directed, edited and produced her own black-and-white silent
movie using classmates — one with Chaplin’s signature mustache and walk — and featuring the classic
ragtime piano music.
“I had a lot of fun making it,” she said.
It took three to five months to complete the independent research projects, said teacher Laura Weaver.

Sands sChaplin made 83 films in his lifetime and died in Switzerland in 1977 after his re-entry pass to
the United States had been rescinded in 1952 based on allegations regarding his morals and politics.
She showed trailers of the 1936 “Modern Times” and the 1940 “The Great Dictator,” which included
Chaplin’s humanitarian speech in his own words.
Weaver said when Sands showed the speech from “The Great Dictator” in class, “you could have heard a pin
drop.”
It had a similar impact at the board meeting.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU_rn1xzItk)
Shuman last year shared with the board his research on dog DNA.
This year he focused on “puddingstones” which “is a popular name applied to a conglomerate that consists
of distinctly rounded pebbles whose colors contrast sharply with the color of the finer-grained, often
sandy, matrix or cement surrounding them.”
Quartz is most abundant in the stones but they also can contain jasper, chert, hermatite and feldspar.

The stone got its name because it resembles plum pudding, Schuman shared.
He also shared a YouTube video to the music of  “We Will Rock You” with subtitles.
Singing to the tune of the classic Queen song, the first verse went “STUDY! In mantle, home of magma,
lave, molten rock, ‘neath the surface of the earth you say.
“Earth’s crust in your face, when the cooling takes place, igneous rocks form at a really slow pace.”
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=r68iEwYdbh4)
There rocks were moved south by glaciers, and can be found in the Boston area; Drummond Island, Michigan,
where his family goes often to vacation; the London basin; and the Hudson Valley region of New York.
The stones can be used as jewelry, book ends, lamp shades and even grave stones, he stated.
The class “helps them push their limits and make them better people,” said Weaver.
Chloe’s mother, Jamie, who shot the video for her daughter, said the class “challenges our students in a
way nothing else does.”
Also at the meeting, the board recognized Breakfast Buddies volunteers at Crim and Conneaut elementaries.

The program, in its fifth year, helps develop a relationship with a special friend, said Lois Main, who
has volunteered all five years
“It’s a lot of fun. These kids are part of our family,” she stated.
The kids look forward to it and are not ostracized in the least, she continued.
Also recognized were Sharon Biggins, Russ and Sherry Frye, Jane Milbrodt, Sally Blair, Tari Geer, Joyce
Mueller, Ben and Ginny Chambers, Deb Szymczak, Jan Marcin, and Donna Mertz.
All are retired teachers.
“It’s so special you give up your time for those children who need it,” praised Superintendent Ann McVey.

It was McVey’s last board meeting with the district – she is retiring — and board President Lee Hakel
took time to thank her “for your 35 years with the district.”
McVey called her time with Bowling Green “a pure pleasure.”
“It’s what I am and what I’m about.”