Wednesday, September 01, 2010 — High School Students Grill Candidates for Governor in Tennessee.   KNOXVILLE, TN: High school students took the first shots at the Democratic and Republican nominees to be the state's next governor, grilling Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam and Jackson businessman Mike McWherter in an hourlong town hall forum. The economy, gun laws and a healthy dollop of education questions were brought to the center at the forum, the first head-to-head matchup of Haslam and McWherter since the Aug. 5 primary. The two candidates also condemned the burning of construction equipment at the building site of an Islamic center and mosque in Rutherford County. Twenty-six students from nine area schools took part in the event. Most were seniors who will cast their first votes in November. The event took place in the Conservation Hall building at the governor's mansion and was organized by first lady Andrea Conte to solicit young voters' views. "It was just a great opportunity to bring young people in and hear their concerns," Conte said. "I think the interest was there; we're just tapping into it." Education came up frequently. Niles Keith, a David Lipscomb student, asked McWherter how he would contain tuition costs at state universities. The Democrat responded with an endorsement of the higher education reforms approved by Gov. Phil Bredesen and the state legislature this year that would make it easier to transfer credits from two-year community colleges to four-year public universities. "We need to look at other ways of providing some of this curriculum," he said. "I want to make sure that we continue in that direction." Haslam, meanwhile, said the state's school systems could be used to combat such challenges as gang violence, childhood obesity, and lifting the science and math scores of girls. Several students also asked about the candidates' plans for creating jobs, a recurring theme on the campaign trail this year.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Tennessean.com, 9/1/10
www.tennessean.com/article/20100901/NEWS02/9010353/1009
/NEWS01
 

Thursday, August 26, 2010 — Students to Get a Voice on Teacher Performance Under New State Law.   LOS ANGELES, CA: High school students will get a chance to say what they think of their teachers under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. SB 1422, which was opposed by the California Teachers Assn., allows the student government at high schools to develop a survey of student opinions about their classes and "teacher effectiveness." Teachers may then circulate the surveys to the students in their classes to get feedback. Under the bill, the survey results would only be shared with the teacher whose class is surveyed: Administrators would not see the surveys and the results would not go into the teachers’ personnel files. Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) said the goal of her bill is to provide a way for teachers to incorporate student feedback into their teaching methods and curriculum. The proposal was the top priority of the California Assn. of Student Councils, she said. "The students said. 'We want a voice in evaluating the people who teach us,''' Romero said after the bill was signed Wednesday. Schwarzenegger wants to go further in evaluating teachers, said spokesman Matt Connelly, who added, "This bill is a small step in the right direction when it comes to looking at teacher effectiveness in our schools.”
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the L.A. Times, 8/26/10
latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2010/08/st
udents-to-get-a-voice-on-teacher-performance-under-new-state-law.
 

Saturday, August 21, 2010 — Students Build First Rain-Powered Fish Hatchery in Oregon.   WARRENTON, OR: There's a poison that's plagued fishery students at Warrenton High School for years. To get rid of it, and its deadly effect on the school's yearly crop of chinook, chum and coho salmon, students have spent thousands of hours scrubbing away deep mahogany-colored stains from the insides of the wide tubs the fish are reared in. The water, drawn from the adjacent Skipanon River, is the problem. Alder and hemlock trees' leaves drop into the slow-moving waterway and steep, leaching tannins into the water and turning it a cloudy brown. Together with the river's penchant for disease and low oxygen levels, the murky brew has proved a lethal challenge for students to battle with year after year. All that is about to change this fall. A new $63,000 filtration system will deliver clean, super-oxygenated water to the facility and virtually eliminate disease. The river will be bypassed, and double-filtered rain and well water will be collected instead, making it the first fish hatchery in the state to use collected rain as its primary source. It's a bold move that makes elements of Warrenton's fishery program on par with hatcheries operated by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. It's downright groundbreaking--the first rain-powered hatchery in the state, facilitating more than just the students' abilities to study and research fish--they learn life skills and many end up with careers in the industry. When it came time to present to ODFW’s Research and Enhancement board, which oversees funding to restore hatcheries, a group of fishery students went to Salem to talk about what they had learned. Jessica McDonald, an 18-year-old Warrenton High School grad who was the hatchery manager last school year, said the students were nervous and a bit self conscious to get up and make that presentation. They explained to the board exactly what was needed to save the fish, and in the end, they got what they needed. "Overall the most important thing the hatchery taught me is if you want something to change, you can make it happen. You just need to be ambitious," she said. She's going to Oregon State University in a few weeks, where she'll study environmental economics with a minor in fish and wildlife.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Daily Astorian, 8/21/10
www.kval.com/news/tech/101198554.html
 

Saturday, August 14, 2010 — NJ Students Go High-Tech To Track Cherry Blossoms.  NEWARK, NJ: For the past month, 10 students have wandered among the thousands of cherry blossom trees in Newark's Branch Brook Park and repeated a curious routine. A student stands next to a tree with a yellow device that resembles an old video game console. Then, after waiting for a series of rhythmic beeps, he moves to the next tree and repeats the exercise. In that one minute, the GPS-powered device communicates coordinates and gigabytes of data to roving satellites 12,000 miles above. The students are working with the Branch Brook Park Alliance to catalog and detail every tree in the nation's largest cherry blossom collection in one location. With aerial surveys and cutting-edge technology, park officials will soon have enough data to keep track of the trees, which draw thousands of tourists every year. "With this data, if an arborist says tree number 375 is infected, we can look through the database for its history and then go straight to the tree," said Jim Lecky, the alliance's executive director. "We can ask, 'Is the prunus subhirtella pendula doing better than the Yoshino cheery in this or that part of the park?'" The project, funded by a $40,000 federal Community Development Block Grant, is one component of a long-term plan to restore the park's famed cherry trees. For the students — two from Rutgers University and eight from Barringer High School and St. Benedict's Prep in Newark — the project has exposed a different side of the park. It has also been a valuable training exercise for the students, among them budding scientists like Darius Clerk, of Barringer High. At the end of their long days in the sun, the students hook up the GPS device to a laptop computer. An aerial photograph of the park then emerges, with the cherry trees appearing as neon green icons. "This is really state of the art," Lecky said.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: CBS3.com, 8/14/10
cbs3.com/wireapnewsnj/Student.scientists.track.2.186001
7.html
 

Friday, August 06, 2010 — Philadelphia High Schoolers Get a Chance to Teach Urban Children.  PHILADELPHIA, PA: Adrienne Stewart, 17, of Burlington Township, and JasaRay Gonazalez, 8, of Camden, met for the first time last week. It was on JasaRay's turf: Lanning Square School. The inner-city Camden school was hosting a program to help rising seniors, like child of the suburbs Stewart, get a taste of being urban educators. This is the second summer for the Rowan Urban Teacher Academy (RUTA), created by Rowan University to give high school students, regardless of where they live, a chance to explore teaching and possibly ignite a passion for urban education. "There's always a need for urban educators because there's high turnover," said Steve Farney, program director and associate dean of Rowan's College of Education. During the two-week program, the high school students are paired with Camden students from kindergarten through fourth grade. They also meet with Camden community leaders, local teachers, education experts, and English-as-a-second-language students. Then there's the highlight - and a test of a future teacher's mettle: shepherding a bunch of excited youngsters to the Franklin Institute. The teenagers and the little ones end up bonding--another key part of a program that challenges assumptions about Camden and teaching in places like it. Aspiring teacher Melissa Calabrese, 18, acknowledged feeling a bit intimidated last year, before she got to know the city children. The experience, Calabrese said, opened her eyes to working in a place like Camden. "I've always wanted to be a teacher," said Calabrese, who will start at Rowan in September, "but this made me 110 percent more sure that this is what I want to do." This year, RUTA is collaborating with the Cooper Reading Institute at Lanning Square, a six-week program aimed at combating the academic summer slide. Jonathan Carmona, 17, said that in 10th grade, he was planning to drop out of school and was doing things that could have gotten him arrested. Then a special teacher told him he was too smart to be wasting his life on the street. It stuck. Now, he said, he's an A and B student, interested in going into special education or teaching delinquent youth. "My teacher saved my life," he said, "so I'm returning the favor."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/6/10
www.philly.com/inquirer/education/20100806_High_schoole
rs_get_a_chance_to_teach_urban_children.html
 

Saturday, July 31, 2010 — Miami Students Train in Mock Court to Put Teens Through Real Thing.   MIAMI, FL: The bailiff was fidgety and nervous, pacing up and down the courtroom floor. But when the trial started, he quickly composed himself, stood up in the crowded room at St. Thomas University's Moot Courtroom and declared: ``The Miami-Dade County Teen Court is now in session!'' The bailiff, Naseem Ahmed, is 13 years old. Ahmed was one of nearly 120 Miami-Dade middle and high school students who were trained to volunteer for the 12-year-old teen court program. In this court, run by a Miami-Dade trust that coordinates community programs, students serve as attorneys, clerks, jurors and bailiffs. And they judge other teens on first-time misdemeanors. Since it started in 1998, more than 3,000 defendants have been tried through the program. So far, some 350 students have been trained to handle the load this year. On Friday, students -- some new and others returning -- held two mock trials to practice court terminology and procedures they had learned. Miami lawyer Charlotte Anderson, who served as a judge during the student presentations, said the trials are the ``moment you have all been preparing so hard for.'' The students -- dressed in ties and business shirts, high-heeled shoes and other business attire -- settled in the courtroom. Before court started, defense attorney Virginia Lafontant, 15, penned last-minute cross-examination questions. She dreams of attending Harvard University Law School. “I just want to keep pushing myself further,'' she said. During closing statements, she froze and couldn't finish her last sentence. “I could also learn from my mistakes and be better next time,'' she said afterward. The teen attorneys and jurors consider a defendant's grades, community service and extracurricular activities before sentencing. According to Teen Court administrator LaVerne Carlile, only 2.1 percent of teens tried through Teen Court last year were rearrested. When the day was over, Ahmed sighed in relief. He made it through mock-trial training. His next goal: becoming a prosecutor.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Miami Herald, 7/30/10
www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/30/1754747/students-train-i
n-mock-court-to.html?asset_id=1754245&asset_type=gallery
 

Saturday, July 24, 2010 — American Student-Built Rocket Wins International Contest.  FARNBOROUGH, ENGLAND: A small rocket built by a team of American students from Pennsylvania soared into first place in an international contest held Friday in Farnborough, England – helping the students become the first U.S. team to win the high-flying event. The four-member team from Penn Manor High School in Millersville, Pa., posted the best score to win a trophy, individual medal and bragging rights at the Third Annual Transatlantic Rocketry Challenge at the 2010 Farnborough International Airshow. They beat out other student rocketeers from France and the United Kingdom. "We are so excited that we won," said Penn Manor team member Brendan Stoeckl. "We succeeded because of practice, good data analysis and teamwork." The international rocket contest is the culmination of three separate competitions held throughout the year: the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), the United Kingdom Aerospace Youth Rocketry Challenge (UKAYRoC) and the French Rocketry Challenge. Each individual contest brings together teams of middle and high school students, and tasks them with designing, building and launching model rockets. For this year's Transatlantic Rocketry Challenge, teams had to launch a rocket that reaches an altitude of 825 feet (251 meters), stays airborne for 40 to 45 seconds, and returns a raw egg payload unbroken. Teams also had to give an eight-minute presentation detailing their rocket design in front of a panel of international judges. This presentation was factored into the teams' final score. The rocket challenges are sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association and the National Association of Rocketry in the U.S., and various European programs designed to encourage and motivate students to pursue careers in the field of aerospace. "Based on today's competition, the future of our industry is looking pretty bright," said Marion Blakey, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association. "The level of enthusiasm of the participants is phenomenal, and each team deserves congratulations for winning their home competition and inspiring other students."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: Space.com, 7/23/10
www.space.com/news/american-students-win-international-
rocket-contest-100723.html
 

Friday, July 23, 2010 — Students Draft Lesson Plan of Their Own: Youth Empowerment Project Members go to D.C.   CHICAGO, IL: World Vision's Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) gives young people a voice to become what they call "agents of change," dedicated to fighting poverty. Each year, YEP students from across the country choose an issue that is most on their minds, then come up with a proposal on how to implement change and present it to their local leaders. After five months of community mapping, interviews, surveys and debate, 13 Chicago-area students from both public and private schools had a clear choice for this year's issue: education. They wanted to find a way to keep kids in school. The students presented their proposal to local representatives in Washington this week. In recent years, violence has been a focus for the project and is still a top issue. But students said they realized that violence by and against youth is an underlying reason why many students drop out. "I have friends and family members affected by (violence)," said JaVée Howard, 18, who attends Morgan Park High School. "But we found another way to attack at youth violence without actually having to talk about it." A recent study from the U.S. Department of Education shows that less than 75 percent of students nationwide got high school diplomas within four years. "The dropout rate is about violence, but it's also people, the teachers, the schools and the neighborhoods," said Howard. The students' proposal, which they presented to community leaders in Chicago last week, had four key recommendations: The first is to level the playing field for all schools in Chicago by updating the facilities and materials. The students also proposed that schools increase social support by asking for more parental involvement and adding extracurriculars. Feedback from students in the form of quarterly and annual surveys was another suggestion. Both could help identify problems such as inedible food and inadequate teachers, students said. Access to information on post-secondary education is the final point. The students are lobbying for the Youth PROMISE Act, legislation that advocates for more resources for preventive programs in education. The bill has 234 co-sponsors in the House. Amara Brady, 16, said, "We often feel as a teenager no one will listen to us. But we want to make a difference. That's why this program is one of the most perfect opportunities. And if we don't make a change, well, who else is going to do it?"
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Chicago Tribune, 7/23/10
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/ct-x-c-youth-
education-proposal-20100723,0,929025.story
 

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 — High School Students Race Solar Cars Across Country.   LUBBOCK, TX: High school teams from across the nation drove through Lubbock Monday in solar powered cars. It was all part of an 800 mile race from Dallas, Texas to Boulder, Colorado. The Hunt Winston School Solar Car Challenge consists of 12 teams competing to rack up the most miles under the power of the sun. Teams took off from Snyder, spent the afternoon in Lubbock, and traveled to Amarillo by Tuesday. Reagan Byrne drove the car from Post to Slaton for Houston, Mississippi's girl's team. She told KCBD NewsChannel 11 that it feels different to be riding low to the ground and even tougher to manage other road distractions. "I had a whole bunch of honks and people sticking their head out the window trying to take pictures and everything. Then they fly past you and it scares you because I'm goin 25 and they're going about 70," said Byrne. Students had to go through various tests and obtain an experimental vehicle license. Colin Hill is one of the judges this year after being a former racer. He says the goal is to get students interested in engineering and problem-solving in a way that services the future. "It's to promote this technology. Really the cars that you see here are a by-product of this race, we're making tomorrow with these kids. They're learning how to make this technology work," Hill said.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: KCBD.com, 7/19/10
www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?S=12832471
 

Sunday, July 18, 2010 — Michigan Teen Farms Her Backyard.  PETERSBURG, MI: The New York Times Magazine reports on Alexandra Reau, 14, who asked her dad to dig up a half acre of their lawn in rural Petersburg, Mich., so she could farm. Now in its second season, her Garden to Go C.S.A. (community-supported agriculture) grows for 14 members, who pay $100 to $175 for two months of just-picked vegetables and herbs. Reau lives in an agricultural area — on the last day of school, seniors are allowed to ride their four-wheelers or tractors — but her great-grandparents were the last generation to farm this land. Alexandra became interested in gardening after participating in the Monroe County Youth Farm Stand Project, which helps disadvantaged youth learn about nutrition. Reau entered her idea for Garden to Go in the Prima Civitas Foundation youth-inventors competition, and her business plan won $300 in start-up money. Following last year’s success, with five members and a few standbys who came whenever extra vegetables were available, Reau’s summer project has jumped the plot. Herbs and squash pop up in the flower beds edging the house; more tomatoes were started in a raised bed that her dad improvised from a neighbor’s recycled soybean seed bag; she grows flowers and peppers at her grandmother’s house next door; more flowers are flourishing outside her two rabbit barns. (Reau has been a national champion rabbit breeder since she was 10; for the past four years, she’s been packaging the manure in her dad’s old plastic nail buckets and selling it as Bunny Honey.) With her drive, resourcefulness and sure touch with plants and animals, it’s no wonder Reau won the state 4-H award for horticulture and crops in June: she’s the poster girl for future farmers. She credits the youth-agriculture organization with improving her public speaking, while Garden to Go has helped her with people skills. “’Cause I used to be, like, really shy and quiet. And I’m just more talkative now.” Farming has also taught her patience. “It’s a continual process,” she says, sighing. “You have to keep working at it, and you can’t just stop.”
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the New York Times Magazine, 7/18/10
www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/magazine/18food-t.html?_r=1&
emc=eta1
 

Thursday, July 15, 2010 — Nonprofit Group Makes Farmers of Urban Teens: Food Project Provides Produce to Local Markets.   DORCHESTER, MA: Halfway between Dudley Square and Uphams Corner, 20 teenage interns work on an urban farm to produce vegetables and fruits for local shelters and farmers’ markets. US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius visited the site, after she met with city officials about local public health initiatives that had been awarded federal funding in March. Boston is one of seven communities nationally to get stimulus money for battling both obesity and tobacco use. The Food Project is getting $600,000 to renovate a deserted greenhouse in Roxbury and build 400 backyard gardens in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, the neighborhoods with the highest obesity rates in Boston. The two-year federal grant will support a variety of initiatives, ranging from expanding bike sharing programs to reducing soda consumption and limiting tobacco access. In the process, the city expects to create up to 50 temporary full-time jobs and 250 summer positions for local youth. “We like to think of the first lady, Michelle Obama, as now the most famous vegetable gardener in the country, but you all are a close second,’’ Sebelius said of Boston’s work supporting local and sustainable food sources. “It really is us learning from you a model that we can take and replicate around the country.’’ For David Hicks, 18, this is his third summer working as an intern for the Food Project. This year, he is spending about 40 hours a week working on a farm in his hometown of Lynn, where he also goes to farmers’ markets to sell the peas, squash, kale, tomatoes, peaches, radishes, and raspberries he helped cultivate. “When they told me I was farming, I was like, farming where?’’ he said. “I didn’t think there were any farms around in the city, but there are a bunch of them, actually.’’ This season, 140 teenagers are working on the more than 40 acres of farm land in Eastern Massachusetts overseen by the Food Project. Hicks said he used to eat fast food several times a week, but as he continued working on urban farms, trying new foods and bringing leftover fresh produce home, the number of times decreased to less than twice a month.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Boston Globe, 7/10/10
www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/0
7/10/nonprofit_makes_farmers_of_urban_teens/
 

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 — New Orleans Students Have Their Say on the Oil Spill.   NEW ORLEANS, LA: In a few less-than-quiet classrooms in New Orleans, about 15 middle and high school students have been gathered together over the past five weeks discussing what they want to do about the BP oil spill. This was not the way they'd originally planned to spend their summer vacation. In fact, they'd planned to spend it envisioning how New Orleans schools could be improved by 2015, the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. For most of these young people, Katrina was, of course, the biggest event to rock their lives, causing some to lose family members, some to lose homes, and most to be temporarily relocated to other communities. But it was also the event that got them out of New Orleans, where both the illiteracy and murder rates are among the highest in the nation, and allowed them to see what other schools look like. After returning home, Grady joined other students with similar experiences and -- under the wise and supportive guidance of founder Jane Wholey and some other very committed adults from New Orleans and around the nation -- formed a new group called the Rethinkers: Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools. Over the past five years, the Rethinkers have gathered for six weeks every summer, concluding the yearly programs with some uniquely attention-getting news conferences at which they've announced recommendations for how New Orleans schools should rethink bathrooms, food and cafeterias, and a myriad of policies and practices to promote a climate of dignity and respect. Many of their recommendations have been met with approval, and the group has attracted attention from media outlets ranging from the Times-Picayune and Christian Science Monitor to the American Prospect and Rachael Ray show. But this year's BP spill, which has been spewing continuously since April 20, created a new focus. "Katrina was devastating," 19-year-old Grady says. "But we know this will affect our lives forever." This Thursday, July 15, at a news conference at Langston Hughes Academy, the Rethinkers will present their recommendations for what role schools should now play in the wake of the spill.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Huffington Post, 7/14/10
www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bennett/now-for-the-kids-sa
y-on-t_b_644766.html
 

Wednesday, July 07, 2010 — Game Design No Child's Play to Students.  HARRISBURG, PA: Tori Hepler, 18, just graduated from Upper Dauphin High School and is a budding video game artist designing the lead character and monsters in a supernatural quest to defeat the Lord of Shadows. She is one of 14 students attending Harrisburg University of Science and Technology's three-week summer Gaming Academy launched last week, an intensive course designed to introduce students to the world of game design and programming. The camp gives high school students a crash course in digital media, where they learn from industry experts and create their own games. "We focus more on the process of game making rather than the final product," Hepler said. She'll be attending Pennsylvania College of Art and Design in the fall, where she wants to expand her skills of animation and artistry, and land a job with DreamWorks or Pixar. Charles Palmer, director of the Center for Advanced Entertainment and Learning Technology and professor of multimedia, said the course works toward "taking all of the creative talents and bringing them together" to create an engaging game. Students respond to the challenge. "It's a great camp for anyone who wants to get into game design and pursue a college degree," said Shane Fleming, 16, who wants to get a degree in computer engineering and work with software or design. Anthony Ortega, production coordinator and lead game design instructor at the academy, said students learn the fundamentals of game design by getting back to the roots of gaming, starting with core concepts and building new games for each step. "Students are looking for the game that's the most fun possible, not the most beautiful," he said. The course is open to students in grades 8-12 and costs $900, and scholarships are available. This session, there were six students receiving full scholarships and four receiving partial funding. After the camp, students can choose to continue their education in game design and animation after high school. While few traditional colleges offer degrees in game design, many offer courses or programs in 3-D animation and programming as a building block to a larger computer science degree.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Patriot News, 7/6/10
www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/
1278384918205380.xml&coll=1
 

Saturday, July 03, 2010 — Students Unite Across Schools, Oceans to Help Uganda.   CINCINNATI, OH: Five years ago, a handful of Moeller High School students heard accounts of Ugandan children being taken from their families and forced to fight in their country's long civil war. Haunted by the stories, the students started educating their classmates and community about the plight of children in Uganda. In 2007, when they heard of a private school in Uganda trying to provide a new life for the children, the Moeller students pledged to pay for tuition, clothing and meals for 10 children, a $3,000 promise they weren't sure they could keep. They held overnight events to raise consciousness and money. They solicited donations from local businesses. They hosted Abitimo Odongkara, the director of Upper Nile Institute for Appropriate Technology (UNIFAT). And one school's passion for Ugandan children spread through seven Greater Cincinnati high schools, public and private. Today, 12 local high schools have Unified for UNIFAT chapters, sponsoring 120 children at the school and raising $65,000 - every year - for their care and education. Together, the teenagers have hired four mentors who oversee care for the group's sponsored children. They've paid for laptops, Internet connections and Skype software and equipment so they can see and talk to the children and receive instant updates on their progress. They're helping fund construction of new classrooms, water storage tanks and latrines. The link forged between an impoverished village in Northern Uganda and suburban schools in Greater Cincinnati is changing the lives of young people on both sides of the globe. The Ugandan children are experiencing stability, often for the first time. Some were "night commuters" - children who walked from their villages to larger towns every day at dusk to reduce the chance they'd be abducted. Now they have regular meals, daily instruction, protective adults around them and materials and even technology provided by their teenaged Ohio friends. "I feel it's my responsibility to get their clothes, shoes, medical care," says Justin Liggett, a Moeller junior who co-directs his school's Unified for UNIFAT chapter. "We write letters to the kids we sponsor. We can talk to people on the ground there. We know where the money we raise goes and what difference it makes in the kids' lives." "Working on this project channels a teenager's emotions into something good," says Sycamore sophomore Sally Evans, incoming president of her school's UNIFAT chapter. "When they see that they're making a difference, it makes them feel better about themselves. I think that's the best gift of all - doing something for someone else makes you happy. It works all the way around."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Cincinnati Enquirer, 7/3/10
news.cincinnati.com/article/20100703/NEWS0102/7040320/S
tudents-unite-to-help-Uganda
 

Tuesday, June 29, 2010 — Student Billboard Designs on Display in Times Square.  NEW YORK, NY: Six students from New York City's High School of Art and Design will see their designs featured on Clear Channel's "Spectacolor HD" digital billboard in Times Square. The billboards were created as part of Create! Don't Hate., a Design Ignites Change mentoring initiative. Professional designers from the New York chapter of AIGA mentored students from the High School of Art and Design to create billboard designs addressing the theme of tolerance. The final student designs address a wide variety of issues such as gay rights, racism and body image. Over the course of two months, the mentors led students through the design process -- from brainstorming and sketching to producing the final designs on the computer. Twenty-two students participated, with six of the designs ultimately chosen for display in Times Square on prime advertising space. The winning billboard designs will be unveiled on Spectacolor HD during a launch event at the corner of Broadway and 47th Street on July 6th. Karin Satrom, a program mentor, worked with high school junior, Deanita Redwood, on a billboard about gay marriage that was selected for display. Karin said, "Deanita was very excited from the beginning. She came in and drew out her concept. We worked together to refine it, but I am amazed by the maturity of her design." Deanita said, "I think that having my design displayed in Times Square is the most incredible opportunity I could have hoped for. Hopefully the message will catch someone's eye and change their mind. If only one person's mind is changed about gay marriage then that's enough for me, because that means Karin's efforts and my efforts were truly worthwhile." The mentors definitely benefit from the relationship as well. Melanie Carnsew, who mentored Sara Ott, said, "I learned just as much from Sara as she could have learned from me. The students are very smart, hard working and always make me laugh; they offer a fresh perspective on the world. The project was also a great networking opportunity with other professionals in my field."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: Business Wire, 6/29/10
www.marketwatch.com/story/student-billboard-designs-on-
display-in-times-square-2010-06-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp
 

Saturday, June 26, 2010 — Arizona Immigration Law Motivating Youths to Embrace Community Activism.   TUCSON, AZ: The Arizona Republic reports today on a growing grass-roots movement of young Latino adults and high-school students who advocate for immigration reform that includes a form of amnesty. Young people have become involved in the fight against Senate Bill 1070, the new law that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. Although national polls have indicated broad support for Arizona's immigration law, a poll taken last month by the Pew Research Center said young people are less supportive than older Americans. Less than half of those ages 18 to 29 surveyed approve of the law, compared with 65 percent for those ages 50 to 64. Alejandra Valenzuela, 17, didn't find out she was an illegal immigrant until high school. An "A" student at Carl Hayden Community High School and a member of many clubs, she was researching colleges when she discovered she needed a Social Security number to apply for federal financial aid. Because she was born in Mexico, she didn't have one and couldn't get one. "I worked my butt off and got good grades," she said. "I tried to help people. I learned the language, and I learned to love the (American) culture." She interns at a law firm and spends her spare time working on immigration issues. When SB 1070 was being signed into law in April, she spent two days outside the state Capitol, sleeping on a cardboard pallet covered with sheets. Outside her recent graduation ceremony, 18-year-old Carlos Gonzalez, Linda Diaz, a senior at Central High School, and Angel Martinez, a junior at South Mountain High School, held up signs that said, "You got your diploma so now what?" and "The Dream Act is coming." They have become a familiar sight at immigration protests and news conferences. All hold leadership roles in a newly formed group that aims to give high-school students an avenue for getting involved. The group, called "No Hate, Educate!," communicates using social-media websites like Facebook and MySpace and a website they created. Gonzalez, Diaz and Martinez are U.S. citizens, and their status means they can speak openly on behalf of those who are illegal immigrants and afraid of being deported. Gonzalez sees the federal Dream Act as a way to help his friends because the law would allow them to attend college without fear and make them eligible for student loans and federal work-study programs. Gonzalez plans to be involved in community work for a long time, possibly branching into other areas like domestic-violence prevention and working with orphans. "Many people have a dream," he said. "But if they don't have the resources, it's hard for them."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Arizona Republic, 6/26/10
www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/06
/26/20100626arizona-immigration-law-community-activism.html
 

Thursday, June 24, 2010 — Providence Teenagers Expand Cupcake Store for Charity.   PROVIDENCE, RI: The popularity of City Girl Cupcake is both a blessing and a curse to the two busy teens that run the still escalating enterprise: Catherine Corrente and Isabella Veader. With the company already in full swing, and with the opening of their new storefront on 99 Weybosset St., Providence, sales are poised to soar. Business is now too heavy for the girls to handle on their own, so they have hired a part-time baker. Corrente and Veader, who just finished their freshman year in high school, have also enlisted the help of lots of family, friends and other City Girl supporters. The teens have pulled on the heartstrings of local and national businesses that, in return, send large donations their way: Whole Foods Market donates organic eggs, milk and butter; Paolino Properties donated the first three months’ rent of the new store, which is no larger than a medium-size closet; S and W Appliances in East Providence donated an oven; Capital Buildings and Design not only donated countertops and cabinets, but also installed them. All net profits of the organization go to charity, says Veader: “Another goal of ours is to support the Rhode Island Community Food Bank with monetary donations as soon as possible.” The goal of the business is to deliver the proceeds from the all-organic treats to child hunger organizations. Corrente says that City Girl Cupcake tries to focus on the local community by donating to the Camp Street Ministries and to St. Mary’s Home for Children. However, they also donate to one of their favorite national charities: Feeding America’s Hungry Children. Corrente and Veader say that most of their popularity comes from “word of mouth” rather than from “the media.” But, looking around at the walls of the new store, at the framed articles featuring the girls’ business, it seems the media has taken more than a little notice of City Girl Cupcake.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Providence Journal, 6/24/10
www.projo.com/food/content/fd-city_girl_cupcake_06-23-1
0_SCIRGLO_v27.1ea34a.html
 

Monday, June 21, 2010 — Student Orchestra Where the Students Are Also the Teachers.  FAIRFAX, VA: This week the Voice of America reported on a group of high school students who started their own orchestra. The Student Symphonic Orchestra of Fairfax, Virginia, near Washington, recently celebrated its first anniversary. A young man named Matthew Martz started the group in his last year of high school. It began with twelve friends from the school orchestra. Music choices are usually decided by a majority vote. The Student Symphonic Orchestra now has more than thirty members. The orchestra performs for free but receives donations that help pay for necessities like sheet music. Sixteen-year-old violinist Nicholas Black joined after he read a story about the group in a local newspaper. He says he likes that the music is more challenging than what he plays with his school orchestra. "The music here is more complicated and harder, but I think it's partly because it's also with woodwinds and brass, basically with a band. At school we do just strings. We don't have a complete orchestra or anything." Matt Martz leads the orchestra as the conductor. He says having musicians of different ages and abilities is not a problem. "A player who hasn't been playing for very long, I try to keep them next to the section player, or leader as we call it, that has been playing a while so they can always ask questions say, 'Hey, I don't know what that means.'"
 
For FULL STORY, go to: Voice of America, 6/21/10
www1.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/usa/Student-Orche
stra-Where-the-Students-Are-Also-the-Teachers-96798934.html
 

Sunday, June 20, 2010 — High School Students Build, Donate Infant Caskets.  KANSAS CITY, MO: The erratic buzz of saws reverberates through the Bonner Springs High School wood shop weeks after school let out. Teacher Kris Munsch watches his students gently handle the lumber, transforming wood into pine caskets for infants. When he heard about families who couldn’t afford a casket for their deceased newborns, Munsch shared it with some students. The students were energized. Seventeen-year-old Jessica Johnson offered to take it on as her senior project, and other students jumped in to assist. Quickly, community members and business owners wanted in on the grassroots project. A quilting group offered to sew tiny blankets, and a lumber store donated wood. Others wanted to help build. Within weeks, the Soft Pine Project was up and running. Last week, the group came together and built 22 tiny caskets, which they call burial cradles. The cradles will be donated to families who cannot afford one. Students understand if the project makes adults feel a bit uneasy. The students admitted they were anxious at first. Johnson, an A-student who plans to be a neonatal nurse, was prepared for her friends’ reactions. “They said, ‘Oh my god, that’s kind of depressing, don’t you think? You’re talking about babies dying; what is wrong with you?’” But Johnson knew they would understand with a more detailed explanation. For now the group has started with 22 burial cradles. They’ve worked out an agreement with one hospital and hope to expand to other hospitals and social service groups. Munsch has asked the students and volunteers to include a note to the families. Students are finding this to be the most difficult part, but that process is an important part of the Soft Pine Project, Munsch said. Another personal touch is the angels the students carved on the inside and outside of each burial cradle. Hearts adorn the side. The end result is a beautiful, yet no-frills casket made of pine.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: The Kansas City Star, 6/20/10
www.kansascity.com/2010/06/20/2031738/bonner-springs-hi
gh-school-students.html
 

Friday, June 18, 2010 — 'Da' Spill': Gulf Oil Crisis Inspires Louisiana's Excel Students to Create.  NATCHITOCHES, LA: The 30 students in the four-week summer program at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, called Excel, were inspired by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to write and perform an original play. "Da' Spill" featured monologues from a variety of points of view -- a dragonfly, a pelican, a BP executive, a fisherman and President Barack Obama. The production also includes songs and poetry. The Excel program challenges the students with rigorous coursework in chemistry, biology, writing, and history, in addition to a sampling of theatre, art and music courses. For the first two weeks of the program, the students have a theater class taught by Kate Riley, director of theater at the school. For that class, the students researched the oil spill and its effects on Louisiana's coastal residents, the economy, and the environment. They used their information to come up with "Da' Spill." The performance of "Da' Spill" took place Friday night in the Black Box Theatre on campus. The Excel program is for 10th- and 11th-grade students who demonstrate the desire to learn, The program exists to offer underrepresented populations an opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to compete and succeed at LSMSA and at the college level.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: Thetowntalk.com, 6/14/10
www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100614
0245/LIFESTYLE/6140321
 

Monday, June 14, 2010 — NYC Students Walk Out to Save Free Transit Pass.   NEW YORK, NY: About 1,000 New York City high school students chanted "This is what democracy looks like!" and waved homemade signs and banners Friday as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest a plan to eliminate their free transit passes. The students walked out of classrooms all over the city at noon and converged at City Hall Park for a rally with elected officials and transit union members. Then they marched across the bridge for a second rally near the former headquaters of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Brooklyn. The protest came a day after Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a stepped-up effort to fight truancy. Bloomberg said Friday that the students should have stayed in class. More than 500,000 city students receive free or reduced-fare MetroCards to get to and from school. The transportation agency has proposed ending the free rides to save money. Without the free passes, families would be forced to buy monthly MetroCards at a cost of about $1,000 a year per child. The New York Times City Room blog reported that students from at least 18 high schools in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan held up signs and chanted in support of the free rides, which it make possible for low-income students to choose their schools. Some travel for up to 90 minutes to attend classes. “If it’s not free transportation, it’s not free education,” said Nazifa Mahbub, 16, a student at Long Island City High School who helped organize the protest. The crowd cheered as she addressed the gathering from a podium just outside the police barricades that were set up for the protest.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Associated Press, 6/12/10
www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=940476&
category=STATE
 

Sunday, June 13, 2010 — D.C. Students Recast 'Our Town' for the Big City.  WASHINGTON, DC: Mortality casts long shadows over Grover's Corners, the setting for "Our Town," Thornton Wilder's 1938 stage classic about life and love in a New Hampshire village. In the last act, the narrator lists the newest occupants of the cemetery, some buried before their time. In "R Town," adapted to Southeast Washington by students and alumni of Hart Middle School, the cemetery scene includes a real and much longer list of those who died young in their community. "Out here, it doesn't matter what kind of shoes you wore or car you drove, but there's something about everyone that does matter," says Crystal Bullock in the play. Bullock, a Hart graduate, is one of several who shared the Stage Manager role. "That's the part that stays with us forever. How we remember them tells us who they were." For the past 15 years, under the guidance of Nancy Schwalb, executive director of the D.C. Creative Writing Workshop, students at the Congress Heights middle school have taken a classic play and rewritten it line by line for their world. This year, Schwalb had the play videotaped by a local director, who shot it over eight weeks. The production was screened Thursday night at the UPO Petey Greene Center, with Hollywood-style velvet ropes and a red carpet rolled out onto Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. As students grew familiar with the story, they came to see the play not as a quaint period piece but as something that spoke universally to them about the fragility of life and the need to value every moment. As they rewrote and rehearsed, the sudden losses in their own lives sent ripples through their work. "Life's too short. Can't spend it angry, holding grudges," said Jessica Carpenter, a senior at Luke C. Moore Academy. Students also saw "Our Town" as a way to bring Southeast -- renamed Southside in their retelling -- to life for those who know it only from headlines. "We have more churches than liquor stores, although many people think it's the other way around," one of the Stage Managers says in the play. Maryum Abdullah, a Ballou senior, said: "I want audiences to take away from this that Southeast D.C. is not just hard and dangerous, that things can get creative in this part of town." In addition to the annual play, Schwalb publishes quarterly editions of student writing in "hArtworks," believed to be the country's only inner-city middle-school literary magazine. The pain in the poetry can be searing. "Our kids all have something to say," Schwalb said. "What you realize is that they have the skills to make art." The connections with her students endure after they leave Hart. On any given afternoon, there are as many Hart alumni as current students working after school on poetry or stories. Although they've gone on to high school, they return to Schwalb's class to work on the next edition of the magazine, or the next play.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Washington Post, 6/13/10
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/1
2/AR2010061204046.html
 

Tuesday, June 08, 2010 — Students Dive at Chance to Restore Oyster Populations.   NEW YORK, NY: Dozens of students at the New York Harbor School who do some of their best school work on the bottom of New York Harbor. "Today I am one of the divers, so I'll be going down and surveying the area and also bringing up oysters so we can put spat on it and put them back down," Jephta Sullivan said. But planting spat, or baby oysters, on old oyster shells is not just a hands on science project for the students at this unique public school. It is also part of an ambitious effort to rebuild the local oyster population and revitalize the underwater environment. "We need the oysters to clear up our waters. Since we live on it, we must respect it," Sullivan said. This week, in honor of the 100th anniversary of his grandfather Jacques Cousteau's birth, Fabian Cousteau joined the divers to launch his new non-profit dedicated to ocean restoration called Plant a Fish. And that means a lot more funding for the oyster project. "Oysters build reefs, they create shelter for fish and other crustaceans and they also provide invaluable food," Cousteau said. He will be planting sea turtles in El Salvador, mangroves in Florida and corals in the Maldives, but he wanted to launch his new organization in the murky New York waters, with the high school students he calls his foot soldiers. "This was the largest oyster rookery in the world and it became a cash cow to build New York City. Now that there are no more oysters or very few, it behooves us to reestablish that balance that was here before we were," Cousteau said. This oyster season, the students will help plant 130,000 oysters in the harbor. If it works, they will form a solid foundation for a reef. "It's a native species that wants to be here and wants to clean up after us and all we have to do is give it a start," said teacher Peter Malinowski. Starting this summer, students will be able to concentrate on the project even more as the school moves from Brooklyn to Governors Island, where they'll grow the oysters from spat to reef.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: NY1.com, 6/7/10
brooklyn.ny1.com/content/top_stories/119984/students-di
ve-at-chance-to-restore-oyster-population