For high school students to be most dialed into their educations, how they learn must be much more than just desk-centric, skill-and-drill lessons. There needs to be some ingenuity, some fun, an opportunity for those students to utilize their imagination and creativity.

An event hosted this past week at Oglebay Park Resort did just that.

High school teams from across West Virginia came to the resort for the fourth-annual Culineering Challenge, a competition that allowed both aspiring chefs and aspiring engineers to work together on a project.

In this competition, high school teams were tasked with engineering and building a model golf hole, then baking a cake that would serve as its putting green. Each team had guidelines to follow — incorporating state landmarks and a specific tea flavor to use with the cake.

The competition, sponsored by the West Virginia Department of Education, marries wonderfully two very different disciplines, engineering and culinary arts –hence the term “culineering” — and fosters teamwork and communication, while allowing students to create something fun.

Congratulations to a pair of Northern Panhandle teams — the Drive and Dine Coyotes of the Wetzel County Technical Education Center and the Culinary Caddies of Wheeling Park High School — who won first and second place, respectively in the competition. It’s proof that our area schools already are doing a good job in making learning exciting and entertaining.

Hopefully, school districts will come up with even more ways in the future to make students want to learn.