Photo by Deb Gau Jarod Lueck, an educator with the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, introduces the audience of more than 700 students to Latsch the bald eagle.

MARSHALL — The crowd gathered at Southwest Minnesota State University on Tuesday got quiet as they waited to be introduced to a special guest.

Jarod Lueck, an educator with the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, opened an animal carrier and brought out Latsch, an 8-year-old bald eagle.

As Latsch stretched his wings, Lueck answered questions about eagles from area schoolchildren.

“How fast can he fly?” one student asked.

Bald eagles can fly at speeds over 25 miles per hour, Lueck said — but when they dive, they can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour.

The visit from the National Eagle Center was the keynote presentation at this year’s Science and Nature Conference, organized by the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative. More than 700 area students in grades K-8 came to SMSU for a day of science-related activities. Topics ranged from engineering to learning about animals and the environment.

During his presentation, Lueck told students about the tools eagles used to catch prey. Bald eagles are equipped with strong beaks, and talons for gripping prey like fish.

“What are their other tools?” Lueck asked.

“Their eyes,” answered one student in the crowd.

Lueck said an eagle’s sharp vision is crucial for hunting. When Latsch was found near Winona, he was blind in one eye, Lueck said. While that meant Latsch couldn’t survive in the wild, he could be an eagle ambassador.

Later at the conference, students got to attend hands-on classes about everything from robotics to botany. In one classroom, presenter Sam Jens taught students how they could make their own helicopters. The kids started out by cutting and folding paper into shapes that would spin as they fell through the air.

“It flew!” one student said, after tossing the paper helicopter up and getting it to spin.

Next, the class moved on to building helicopters that used rubber bands to turn the helicopter blades.

In another session, middle school-aged students took on an engineering challenge: they had 20 minutes to try and build the tallest tower out of plastic drinking straws and tape.

Milroy students Addy Brey and Maddox Eliason started out by taping a long line of straws together for height.

“Ours would definitely not win for the strongest,” Eliason said. After a while, the tower started to collapse, and Brey and Eliason bent more straws into an arch to support the tower’s base.

Quite a few groups’ towers had to change design partway through the challenge to keep them from falling over.

“We’re kind of freestyling it,” said Murray County Central student Paige Schuur.

As the group added to their tower, members added their own ideas.

“It’s leaning — we need like a support right here,” said MCC student Colton Joens.

Organizers said this year the Science and Nature Conference was celebrating its 30th anniversary. The event has grown a lot over time, said Andrea Anderson, student enrichment coordinator at SWWC.

“It started out as a Saturday event,” she said.

When SWWC switched to holding the conference on a weekday, attendance really took off. Before the COVID pandemic, the conference had started to see participation of more than 1,000 students a year.

This year, a total of 731 students took part in the conference.

“We’re starting to get our numbers back,” Anderson said.