Aiden Xu, a fifth grade student at Conneaut Elementary, was selected for a $200 scholarship from the Northwest Ohio Consortium of Coordinators for the Gifted.
The annual scholarship is presented to applicants who demonstrate a strong passion or interest in a specific area. Applicants must submit an essay describing how the award will help support or enhance their passion and include specific details regarding how they will use the scholarship.
This year, NWOCCG received 25 submissions from students across Northwest Ohio and selected six scholarship winners.
Xu will use the award to help cover the cost of coding apps and classes, enabling him to create educational video games for students. In his essay, he expressed a passion for video games and his desire to challenge the negative stigma surrounding frequent gaming. He plans to learn coding for game design and invite friends and peers to test his games for success.
Xu is a gifted student in the P.A.C.E. class with identification in superior cognitive ability and math skills.
“Aiden is a phenomenal math student and was a gold medalist in our annual International Perennial Math competition program last year,” said Laura Weaver, P.A.C.E. teacher and district coordinator for gifted services.
He earned a perfect score on the Intermediate (grades 5-6) and Advanced (grades 7-8) Teams. His achievements, including the Rookie (grades 3-4) Team, put him in the top 10% of 2,695 students in grades 3-8 in the competition. Aiden is enrolled in Math 8, an accelerated Math class for seventh graders, at Bowling Green Middle School.
“I am confident his math mind, analytical skills, creativity, and technical abilities will help him design enjoyable games for academics. I can’t wait to play. I am so proud of Aiden for being one of the six winners from Northwest Ohio,” Weaver said.
