GARDEN GROVE : A Fast Way to Learn at a Snail’s Pace

The Kentucky Derby may have been exciting to some folks, but for the sixth-graders at Stanley Elementary School nothing can beat the thrill of racing garden snails.

Sure, some may poke fun at the slow-moving mollusks. But students said that what their steeds lack in speed and majesty, they more than make up for in, well, slime.

About 30 sixth-grade students participated in the school’s seventh annual snail race Wednesday afternoon. The races were part of a science project intended to teach students about the crawly critters.

“It’s cool. I expected them to sit there, but they went really fast,” said 10-year-old Angela English after watching the first few races.

Teacher Barbara Ridgeway said that she uses the races to teach children some interesting facts about snails, which can pull 200 times their own weight, have 25,600 teeth called radula, and can sleep for as long as four years without eating.

After being admonished to place no bets on their invertebrate pets, students put their snails at the center of two concentric circles drawn on laminated paper. The object was to coax snails to the outside of the outermost ring with bribes of potato chips, grass, celery and other inducements.

The winners of each race moved on to compete in subsequent heats.

Throughout the races, children screamed, shouted and sometimes chanted, “Escargot! Escargot!” with deafening enthusiasm.

The final heat included three snail speedsters: Little Fat Pat, Mister Fast, and Lucky. Little Fat Pat poured on the speed early on and never lost his lead. He finished the 10-inch course in just over 1:05, fully two lengths ahead of his competitors.

His opponents finished in a tie, but Lucky was penalized for crawling onto the back of Mister Fast and being carried across the finish line.

Little Fat Pat’s trainer, 12-year-old Patrick Nguyen, leaped and punched the air with his fist when the snail inched across the finish line. He later received a trophy for his efforts: a gold-painted snail shell mounted on a block of wood.

The students were clearly entertained by the science project, and a crowd of about 200 children from other grades crowded around to watch the races unfold. Several youngsters offered their own theories and observations about handicapping the races.

“Snails come in two speeds: slow and slower. The slow ones win,” said 12-year-old Garrett Sanders.

Though his own crawler lost early on, he said, studying snails at the racetrack was much more interesting than reading about them in class.

“You get to have fun and learn about snails,” he said. “I hate looking at books. This is fun.”