Trace Snow: A skiing app to check your speed

Credit: Kidsday staff artist / Joseph Malossi, Sayville
Last February I went skiing with my dad, my brother Dominick, and my uncle Peter. We went to Jiminy Peak in Massachusetts.
Before I started skiing, I downloaded a free app: Trace Snow. It tracks how fast you go when you ski or snowboard. Everyone else was snowboarding, except for Dominick, who had broken his leg skiing down a trail of moguls. The fastest speed I got was 51 mph. I was skiing faster than anyone!
I think skiers can go faster than snowboarders, because when skiers go down the mountain they have more balance — it’s not one big board. For snowboarders, it’s much harder and takes longer to learn. It is also hard to gain balance. Snowboards are meant for tricks, not speed. You need balance to do tricks on a snowboard. If you put a skier and a snowboarder in a race, the skier would win because they have more speed.
Melissa Levonick’s fifth-grade class, Wading River Elementary School