By Travis Gupton

The Selma Times-Journal

Meadowview Elementary School’s App team competed in the 2023 Alabama Computer Science Summit in Montgomery on Monday.

Two fourth graders, Kourtni Rowe, and Gabrielle Smith created an app after the January 12 tornado in January to help students in the school be ready for when another disaster happens.

“The app is called MES Drills,” Rowe said. “It has six pictures in all. Three on one side and three on the other, they are tabs. On one tab it takes you to the policy and procedures of the fire drill. Then on the other side on the next tab is a video explaining what you do when a fire happens. Under that one, it was another tab to the policy and procedures for a tornado drill, and across from it was a video saying what to do. Then the last one was the policies and the procedures of a lockdown and the video showing what to do.”

MES Media Specialist Tracy Woods said that the app was part of a challenge the pair competed in.

“The app was part of the Alabama Governors App Challenge,” Woods said. “What they had to do was they had to come up with an idea to create an app. They could use whatever program they wanted to use to make the app.”

Woods said that originally the pair started with one idea and then changed to another.

“They started with a reminder app,” Woods said. “The girls wanted to create an app to help remind them of things they had to do. Once the storm came through on January 12 they came to me asking me if they can change it. I said sure. They wanted to create an app to help with Meadowview drills and what to do during the storms. They went through the storms. They wanted all the students and parents of Meadowview to know Meadowview procedures for all our drills. That’s how that app came about.”

The pair won first place in the District 5 Governor’s App Challenge allowing them to go the Montgomery to compete with all of the states. Meadowview did not win unfortunately but the kids had an awesome experience.

“It was fun and exciting,” Rowe said.