Your bulletin of current news involving adolescents

Friday, March 05, 2010 — Hundreds of California Youth Protest Cuts in Education.  SAN FRANCISCO, CA: Yesterday hundreds of Mission High students, accompanied by faculty and staff, poured out upon Dolores Street near the intersection of 18th, banging drums, blowing whistles, chanting, and holding handmade signs reading “Stop Crippling Public Education,” and “DREAM: Act Now.” Cars halted at the intersection honked in support. It was one of the first actions in the Mission in conjunction with dozens of others across the state in protest against massive budget cuts in public education. The Mission High marchers continued their march south along Valencia Street, eventually converging with numerous other school and civic groups at the 24th and Mission BART station. Student Lucas Ho said that with the massive budget cuts, “The chances for student success are being limited,” citing rollbacks in honor programs and not hiring tutors. Another student, Stacey, came with about 30 other students from Balboa High School. “Our education is important,” she said emphatically. Enthusiastic elementary school students, at many points during the day's rallies, seemed to be leading the charge. The San Francisco Community School seemed to come armed with a number of assertive youngsters, one of whom on the verge of yelling themselves hoarse with crowd-hyping chants over a megaphone. 11th grader Moneace Smith came with fellow students and teachers from June Jordan School for Equity. “It is our future money—we need that,” she said, showing a level of recognition of the cuts' long-term impact. “We want our education. We want to go to college.”
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the San Francisco Bay Guardian, 3/5/10
www.sfbg.com/politics/2010/03/05/young-people-protest-s
chool-cuts
 

Tuesday, March 02, 2010 — Students Conduct Business: Class at Santa Barbara High School Serves Community.  SANTA BARBARA, CA: Santa Barbara High School students are learning how to run their own business in a Virtual Enterprise class called Dons Net Café. Since September 2000, Dons Net Café has been an entirely student-run enterprise located on the Santa Barbara High School campus. Students practice what they term “Ethonomics” (Ethical Economics). Through the sale of Dons Net Café products such as T-shirts, buttons, key chains, and mouse pads, students participate in a wide array of community service opportunities. The largest revenue generator for Dons Net Café is the “snack shack,” a small cart rolled out between class periods on campus that offers healthier and more affordable alternatives to the campus vending machines. Perhaps Dons Net Café’s most significant community service is its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA). Each year, students in the Virtual Enterprise class help approximately 600 low-income families and individuals file tax returns. Dons Net Café participates in more community service and business initiatives than most businesses. As Co-Chief Executive Officer Katherine Gray put it, “I can’t think of a single problem that we’re not alleviating in some way.” Programs include cell phone recycling, customized recycling bins, and beach cleanups. Students also attend trade fairs and community events such as United Way’s Day of Caring, where members wrote and performed a song for the official breakfast. Currently, students are preparing for Santa Barbara’s Earth Day, where they have been asked to be the official Youth Ambassadors and to design official T-shirts. Students are also writing a song they will perform for the event. Dons Net Café is currently selling Do Ubuntu bracelets, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to the women and orphans in Africa who construct these bracelets. The students also created the campaign’s official T-shirt, soon to be sold worldwide. Newest on the agenda is the purchase and shipping of “billboard bags,” which are made out of discarded billboards by Indonesian trash pickers. Although teacher and founder Lee Ann Knodel provides guidance, students are expected to take the lead. Dons Net Café works with a long list of business partners on its various ventures, giving students valuable contacts for internships and employment.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Santa Barbara Independent, 3/2/10
www.independent.com/news/2010/mar/02/dons-net-cafe-stud
ents-conduct-business/
 

Sunday, February 28, 2010 — Young Guitarists Fine-Tune Their Skills, Plugging Into Toledo's Music Scene.  TOLEDO, OH: Yesterday 100 Toledo School for the Arts students performed with friends, attended workshops for all levels of experience in rock, blues, jazz, metal, country, bluegrass, and folk, and listened to visiting artists as part of Guitar Festival 2010. Said eighth grader Macio Zelip, 13, after playing 12-string guitar in a ska/reggae/rock fusion session with Taylor and two other classmates in front of a dozen people: "We had a few people sitting in front of me, watching. And there was this father talking to his son about what I was doing. And I just felt real good about him. He was a total stranger." The fourth annual guitar festival offered workshops on playing technique, pedal effects, setup and staging, song writing, and succeeding as a female artist. There were also guest performers, including Toledo's Jo "MoeJoe" Boes and His Noble Jones with his blues/jazz/funk fusion sound. Randy Sobel, guitar instructor at the school, said an addition to the guitar festival this year was so-called master classes - extended workshops with artists such as Nathan Montgomery, an experimental percussive acoustic and jazz guitarist, and guitarist Lee Dyament, who teaches at Wayne State University. "The idea [of the event] is playing with other guitar players and exchanging ideas with us, exchanging names, and numbers," Mr. Sobel said. Mr. Bundy is the father of Jilly Mae, an 18-year-old guitarist and songwriter who both performed at the event and led a new workshop for about a dozen students. Her workshop, "Making It As A Female Artist," focused on the song-writing process and getting past writer's block. "There is really no trick," said the recent graduate of Arts Academy In the Woods in Fraser, Mich. "You just have to make yourself get back in the mind-set of feeling the emotions you felt when you first started writing the songs. That's my way of doing it."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Toledo Blade, 2/28/10
www.toledoblade.com/article/20100228/NEWS04/2280326
 

Friday, February 26, 2010 — Lawsuit Seeks Ban on Paddling in Schools.  TATE COUNTY, MS: A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a Tate County high school student asks for a ban on paddling in Mississippi, claiming the punishment is unfairly applied based on gender and race. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of William Cody Childress, a 16-year-old student at Independence High School who claims he was struck twice "with excessive force" for looking at a camera in class in September 2009. "This lawsuit is about bringing attention to corporal punishment," said Childress' attorney. The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order to prevent paddlings while the court considers a permanent ban. The lawsuit seeks damages and attorneys fees, as well as a declaration that corporal punishment on students is unconstitutional. The Tate County School District, superintendent and principal are named as defendants. The 22-page lawsuit cites U.S. Department of Education statistics that said more than 220,000 students in the United States were paddled in the 2006-07 school year alone, with a majority of those in five states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas. "Mississippi has the worst record in the country when it comes to corporal punishment and paddled over 30,000 students or approximately 7.5 percent of its student body," the lawsuit said. About 30 states have banned paddling, and the punishment is used rarely in some of the ones that allow it. Childress' lawsuit alleges he was paddled for looking at a picture on a camera while the female student who brought the camera to school was not punished. The lawsuit alleges nearly 75 percent of students paddled in Mississippi are male, creating "a serious, gender-driven crisis." The lawsuit also alleges black students are paddled at disproportionate rates. "This should come as no surprise because paddling has historic connections with the way slave owners disciplined unruly slaves on the plantation," the lawsuit said.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Clarion Ledger, 2/23/10
www.clarionledger.com/article/20100223/NEWS/2230331/100
1/Lawsuit-seeks-ban-on-paddling-in-schools
 

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 — Environmental Charter High School in New Haven Wins Grant to Get Greener.  NEW HAVEN, CT: Common Ground High School’s 20-acre site on the flank of West Rock State Park may get a new harvest pavilion and a cistern to store rainwater, thanks to a $96,000 grant students at the environmental charter high school won. The students won the money, to draw up a site plan for their school grounds, from a national committee composed of other high school and college students. Sixteen students who worked on the grant formally accepted the award Monday afternoon. Common Ground is the state’s only environmentally themed charter school, as well as a community environmental center, a working farm with both animals and a large organic garden selling produce to the public, and “a laboratory for environmental research, sustainable living, the study of natural and human history, and community-building.” The grant was awarded by the youth advisory board of State Farm Insurance, which handles $5 million in philanthropic funds. Several local State Farm agents accompanied students Monday on a tour of the property. Keith Taylor, a senior, pointed toward the garden. He said the student grantwriters agreed that building a harvest pavilion is a top priority. It will store farming equipment as well as harvested vegetables, and will be the place shoppers come to buy the students’ produce. Samantha O’Brien, a junior, is focused on water—conserving it and reusing it. She said she doesn’t see why the school should pay for water from the city when students and faculty can collect it in rain barrels. “It won’t be clean enough to drink, but we can use it in the toilets and the hoses” to water crops. Students will propose their ideas for making the campus more sustainable, and the ones that garner the most support will be implemented. School director Liz Cox said the grant will not involve just the 16 students who wrote it: “They do plan to involve the entire student body, so it also is doing a lot to elevate leadership at the school.” In conversations with the students after the ceremony, it was clear that even those who don’t define their futures that way intend to keep environmental awareness at the forefront of their lives. “Even if we are not planning to go into the environmental field,” said O’Brien, “everybody needs to do their part” for the planet. She said she wants to be a science teacher and share with others the concepts of natural systems and sustainability she’s learned at Common Ground.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the New Haven Independent, 2/23/10
newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/a_gree
n_school_is_/id_22861
 

Monday, February 22, 2010 — High School Mural Contest Recalls Famous Grad, Animator Tex Avery.  DALLAS, TX: North Dallas High art students are painting murals of characters created and developed by Tex Avery, Class of 1926. Students are competing to paint the best mural of the toons. Avery created the wise-cracking Bugs Bunny and awarded him the signature, "Eh, what's up, doc?" He first heard the line at North Dallas High, where he graduated with the Class of 1926. Avery's animated films are enjoying a renaissance at his alma mater this month. In a narrow, whitewashed hallway between the cafeteria and a computer lab, students are painting color-drenched murals depicting the Avery characters – Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, sad-eyed Droopy dog, and the rest. "I grew up watching them on Cartoon Network," said Jesus Martinez, one of the student muralists.Even though Avery created his best cartoons in the 1930s and '40s, they still appeal to young people today. These cartoons started out among the "short subjects" preceding a feature film. In the late '40s, some were resurrected for television. Today, they live in DVD collections and on cable channels. The student artists are competing in a contest to paint the best mural of Avery's characters. Winners will be declared later this month. Teachers say incidents of illegal graffiti have decreased recently, because students can use the cartoon contest as an outlet. Meanwhile, they are learning about his life and career as an animator and director.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: The Dallas Morning News, 2/22/10
www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stori
es/DN-texavery_22met.ART0.State.Edition1.4bb6e7d.html
 

Sunday, February 21, 2010 — Applicants to College Submit Creative Flood of Videos on “U” Tube.   BOSTON, MA: Tufts University this year has become the first selective college in the nation to encourage applicants to submit videos about themselves. More than 1,000 high school seniors have included one-minute video essays in their bids for a spot in the Class of 2014. And in a strange melding of the once-private college applications process with the openness of the Internet, the videos, posted to YouTube, have generated a following among Tufts students and alumni, who are posting comments campaigning for their favorites. Lee Coffin, Tufts’ dean of admissions, says the clips showcase a creativity and personality that would be hard to convey on paper. The idea is part of an effort begun by the university in 2006 to evaluate aspects of applicants’ intelligence not reflected in SAT scores and grades. Of this year’s 15,436 applicants, 6 percent submitted a video. The videos are judged as one part of a whole picture, with a student’s academic record still weighing the most, Coffin said. Production value will not be a factor, nor will public comments be considered in the admissions team’s decision. What counts, he said, is creativity and wit, something that shows a student’s voice or talent - that can answer, “What spark do they bring to the class?’’ Other colleges do not explicitly ask for videos, but most accept whatever students choose to submit. Harvard College has for decades asked students to submit any supplementary materials that display exceptional talent. Harvard’s admissions dean frets that video applications may give an unfair edge to students from affluent families. But Coffin said more than 60 percent of the videos reviewed by the college so far were submitted by applicants for financial aid. “Access to video capabilities--via computers or cellphones, even--among teenagers is almost universal,’’ he said. Many of the videos are rather simple scenes - little more than a student talking into the camera on a computer. Others are highly edited with story lines and soundtracks. “Some of the best videos are rather crude or simple in terms of their production values but they feature an appealing narrative or clever conceit that introduces us, more deeply, to an individual student,’’ Coffin said. The videos and other application supplements - like using an 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper to create something - help colleges assess applicants’ creativity, wisdom, and practical skills, said Robert Sternberg, author of the forthcoming book “Admissions for the 21st Century” and dean of the Tufts School of Arts and Sciences. Applicants who are strong in those areas tend to have higher freshmen GPAs and participate in more extracurricular, leadership and citizenship activities in college, he said.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: The Boston Globe, 2/21/10
www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/02/2
1/a_fresh_pitch_on_u_tube/
 

Thursday, February 11, 2010 — Students Protest 'God Hates America' Group's Appearance at School.   SAN JOSE, CA: A group of about 25 Menlo-Atherton High School students visited Gunn High School on Wednesday afternoon to express their support after a controversial church group protested outside the Palo Alto campus last month. The Menlo-Atherton students wore white T-shirts with handwritten slogans such as "M-A supports Gunn" and "Intolerance 4 Intolerance" and sat in a circle on the Gunn quad at lunchtime to protest the Jan. 29 appearance of Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church at the school. The church, known for its anti-gay, anti-Semitic views, came to Gunn in part to blame the community for a string of suicides by former, current and incoming students on the Caltrain tracks. Menlo-Atherton juniors Hannah Rosenfeld and Evan Weiner, 16, decided to organize the event after their history teacher spoke to them about the January protest at Gunn and encouraged them to stand up for their beliefs. The students headed to the main quad after a Gunn administrator said they were welcome there. The Gunn students gradually began talking to the visitors and some donned the white T-shirts to loud applause. Gunn junior Caitlin Levinson said she was more accustomed to seeing Menlo-Atherton students as rivals on the softball field than as supporters. "It shows a level of respect that I never knew they had," she said. "A lot of people were upset by (Westboro Baptist Church's) message, but they didn't let it affect them. After the suicides, we're really united." Hundreds of students, parents and community members gathered outside Gunn and Stanford's Taube Hillel House in January to deliver a message of love and tolerance while five Westboro protestors picketed the schools with signs reading "God hates you" and referring to Obama as "The Beast." At morning and lunchtime protests that day, Gunn students sang songs while carrying signs that read "God hates hate," and Principal Noreen Likins sported a shirt with the slogan, "Gay? Fine by Me."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the San Jose Mercury News, 2/11/10
www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14376951?nclick_ch
eck=1
 

Sunday, January 31, 2010 — Students Make History for Composers Festival: High School of the Arts Focuses on World War II Generation.   LOS ANGELES, CA: The Pacific Symphony's annual American Composers Festival, this year, is exploring the themes of "The Greatest Generation," the challenges and hardships faced during the turbulent 1930s and '40s will be seen through the eyes of the newest generation. The symphony has partnered with the Orange County High School of the Arts, tapping students from the film and TV conservatory to produce documentary shorts that bring the experiences of this older generation to a younger audience. Videos from three students will be shown during two of the three concerts that make up the festival. For example, Kaylen Hadley, a senior from Corona, selected as her subject Helen Miller, her longtime violin teacher. The 92-year-old Miller's experiences through the Depression and World War II led to personal consciousness-raising that Hadley captures -- the Rosie the Riveter opportunity for women to enter the workforce for the first time is something Miller values as a society-changing experience. The participating students’ determination, effort and the quality of their results represent what goes on at the school, which has 1,400 students from 92 Southern California cities, grades 7 through 12, supplementing their academic course work with 11 programs in music, dance, theater, film and TV. Hadley, who has a twice-a-day 90-minute commute, used her train travel time to edit her video on her Mac. Hadley's videos from the last couple of years have been shown at the Newport Film Festival and other regional festivals. As for her new piece, Hadley said her violin teacher's reminiscences led to a life lesson for current times: "What came through as I edited her comments was that back then it was more like a community facing these challenges, not just individuals, but everyone pulling together against hard times. We can learn now from how they came through it as a generation."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Los Angeles Times, 1/31/10
www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-greatest3
1-2010jan31,0,1476430.story
 

Sunday, January 24, 2010 — New Beginnings for Juvenile Justice: Wiretap Tracks Top Youth Activism Victories of 2009.   WASHINGTON, DC: Wiretap Magazine presented an end-of-year summary of youth activism victories of 2009, including the decades-long battle to close some of the nation's most decrepit youth prisons. On May 29, Washington, D.C. closed long-troubled Oak Hill Youth Center after years of reported scrutiny over rat-infested cells, abuse by guards and dismal educational programming. The facility was replaced by New Beginnings Youth Center, a $46 million dollar campus that eschews razor wire fencing and clunky cells for electronic entry cards, a library and a landscaped courtyard. In August, California state officials announced plans to close Herman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino. A report released in 2007 concluded that the environment was so bad at the facility that youth were especially prone to violence or suicide. While federal officials stalled on immigration reform this year, students in Wisconsin went full steam ahead when they successfully passed a state-based version of the DREAM Act. On June 29, Wisconsin became the 11th state in the nation to allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. Students organized with the support of immigrant advocacy groups Voces de la Frontera and Students United for Recognizing Immigrant Rights (SUFRIR). In addition, in February 12,000 young people descended on D.C. as part of the Power Shift '09 campaign -- organized by the Energy Action Coalition -- to push for a ban on coal, immediate action on climate legislation this year, investment in green jobs and a 40 percent carbon emissions reduction by 2020. Youth from all 50 states hammered their message home in some 370 meetings with Congressional members and staff. Other stories highlighted by Wiretap including voter registration drives, and reforming higher education standards.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: Wiretap Magazine, 12/23/09
www.wiretapmag.org/stories/44736/
 

Monday, January 18, 2010 — Chicago Students Step Up Debate on Immigration Reform: Immigrant Youth Justice League Holds 'Coming Out' Summit.  CHICAGO, IL: In an event that might have been stymied by fear even a year ago, more than a dozen undocumented students will risk making their status even more public Monday at a four-hour "coming out" summit in Pilsen coordinated by a new group hoping to push harder for reforms to the nation's immigration system. The Immigrant Youth Justice League, made up of about 15 Chicago-area students, is part of a wave of younger immigrant activists around the U.S. using more aggressive, in-your-face tactics to seek legal status as part of a volatile national debate that has stalled in Congress in recent years. They see an expected renewal of the debate this year as a last, best stand. The students whose activism was born during massive immigrant marches in Chicago and elsewhere years ago, have been behind several smaller recent battles, bouncing between Facebook campaigns and old-school organizing with equal ease. The Immigrant Youth Justice League was inspired by ongoing efforts to pass the so-called Dream Act, legislation that would grant conditional legal status to students who arrived as children. Uriel Sanchez, 18, had been promised financial aid for tuition, but the money vanished when an administrator asked him to provide a Social Security number. "When we fail to speak up, when we fail to criticize ... " he said. "It is a far greater blow to the freedom, the decency and to the justice which truly represents this nation we call home."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Chicago Tribune, 1/18/10
www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-immigration-reform-coll
ege-1jan18,0,1641076.story
 

Thursday, January 14, 2010 — Oregon Students Protest Uganda Anti-Gay Bill.  BEAVERTON, OR: Forced AIDS tests. Steep penalties for those who know about gay relationships but say nothing to authorities. Death for men who have consensual sex with a consenting adult partner. Those are some of the stipulations of an anti-gay bill in the Ugandan parliament that have horrified people the world over and brought threats of sanctions against Uganda from Western nations. But it’s not just the mighty and powerful that have spoken against the bill; in Oregon, a group of high school students have taken a stand against the bill, which has been deemed too harsh by Uganda’s own president. Students at Southridge High School in Beaverton, Oregon, have organized a rally against the bill; students from area schools plan to prove themselves allies in the struggle for human rights and show up for the rally, too, according to the Beaverton Valley Times. The school’s partnership with a Ugandan secondary school, Matale St. Andrew’s Secondary School, helped spark the rally, which will take place Jan. 23. The event is being called Respect Humanity: Uganda March and Rally, and is planned to being at several points around town, before converging at a single location. The goal, according to high school senior Chelsea Pfeifer, who visited the African nation in 2008, is "To spread awareness at a global level. Anything helps.” Her sojourn to Uganda "started my passion for human rights and especially Uganda because I know some of the kids personally and I know who this will affect." A senior from another high school, Evy Lopez, who hails from South Africa, is slated to speak at the event. Lopez described herself as "very shocked" by the bill: "It’s very sad... People are using their power to take advantage and that’s not a very Christian thing to me."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Edge, Boston, 1/14/10
www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&
id=101178
 

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 — NASA Launches Rocket Dreams at Texas High School.  FORT WORTH, TX: Seven Northwest High School students form the team of rocketeers selected to participate in NASA’s 2009-2010 Student Launch Initiative (SLI). They are designing and building a rocket that will be launched before NASA engineers at Bragg Farms in Toney, Ala., April 15-18. The projected size of the rocket is four inches wide and seven feet tall. "These are not toy rockets you shoot off at home. This is the real deal," said senior team member Logan Van Gorp. "This is something I’ve looked for ever since the end of my junior year." The team is one of only a dozen from high schools nationwide asked to participate in the SLI – which is not a competition as much as it is a data-gathering project. 37 teams from high schools, middle schools, colleges and universities are taking part. The NHS team finished 14th in the Team America Rocketry Challenge in May, launching a model rocket 750 feet in the air with a flight time of 45 seconds carrying a raw egg. The egg had to return to earth unbroken to qualify. Students will spend up to 15 or 20 hours working on the project each week, in addition to regular school work. Each student on the team had to apply for a position. The interview process was open to students campus-wide, and 11 finalists were chosen, of which seven have made the final cut. The team plans to launch a scale model of the rocket (about half its final size) Saturday. A test launch of the rocket they will take to NASA’s Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Ala., in April will be conducted in either Dallas or Houston. The payload will be ladybugs, because if someday humans colonize space, ladybugs will be used to combat pests in the crops. A camera inside the rocket will record the ladybugs’ reaction to the flight, which can be studied later. "I’ve always thought this was an exciting field," junior Brannan Bradshaw said. "To be a part of something like this is fascinating. This is applicable to our lives. I want to pursue a career in engineering."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1/12/10
www.star-telegram.com/Times-Register/News/story/1887971
.html
 

Thursday, January 07, 2010 — High School Students Participate in “Babies Driving Robots” Project.  WILMINGTON, DE: Four students from the Charter School of Wilmington (CSW) gained valuable research experience last summer on a University of Delaware project that has gained national attention--robot-assisted infant mobility. Under the direction of UD doctoral student Christina Ragonesi, the four high school students--Allaa Mageid, Ponni Vel, Emily Yang, and Carina Blair--participated in activities in the classroom at UD's Early Learning Center, including filming, data collection and coding. Ragonesi's research focuses on the effects of early mobility training on socialization development in very young children with mobility impairments, such as cerebral palsy and spina bifida. The project involved giving a small mobility device to a special-needs three-year-old in his preschool classroom, tracking the extent to which the child drove the device in the classroom as well as how his social behavior changed across time. “My favorite part of the work was that there was always a surprise the next day,” sophomore Blair says. “This taught me that things do not always go as you plan, so you have to be able to adjust. The project taught me about how the real world is going to be. In school, our experiments are all planned out, and we know what to expect. But in this case, we did not know how the results were going to turn out, and that was the most exciting part.” Yang, a senior, concurs: “Through this experience, I learned about the true nature of research. Sometimes, what was expected to happen didn't work out, or unexpected complications arose, but we always sought to look past these occasional frustrations and continue to work towards the end goal.” The interdisciplinary work, which involves mechanical engineering and physical therapy faculty, made an impression on the students. “When I witnessed how an innovation of engineering could profoundly change someone's life through a collaborative effort between two very different disciplines,” Yang says, “I was inspired to pursue engineering in college.” The four high school students are co-authors on a poster that will be presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies in Baltimore March 10-14. “These students did a lot of troubleshooting for us and contributed a great deal to the success of the project,” says Ragonesi. “It was wonderful to see them so passionate and involved. They still email me to see how the project is progressing.” The collaboration with CSW will continue next summer and into the future.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the University of Delaware Daily, 1/4/10
www.udel.edu/udaily/2010/jan/robots010410.html
 

Monday, January 04, 2010 — Inner-City Charter School Succeeds with 'YES' Program.  HOUSTON, TX: It was Deadline Day at YES Prep North Central, the day college applications were supposed to be finished. So much was riding on this: the reputation of a charter school built around the mission of sending every student to college. Above all, the dreams of 43 North Central seniors determined to turn stereotypes and statistics upside-down. A few years earlier, college had been a vague notion for most of these students. "I didn't know anything about college," said Carol Cabrera, 17, the oldest child of Mexican immigrants who had not made it past high school. Elizabeth Martinez and Brandon Gunter, both 17, had long been told that a college education paved the road to a better life. But they didn't know how to turn the ambition into reality. In middle school, Eric Salazar often felt like the only student turning in homework, the only one striving for higher standards. Even his teachers expected little from the students. Fernando Luna saw his future limited to technical schools or vocational colleges. "It's more difficult to be successful if you're ashamed to be the only person on time for a test, the only one doing homework," said Fernando, 17. "College was a goal for me, but not a tangible possibility." Then these five students stepped inside North Central, where college for all is a vision infused into the fabric of the YES Prep charter school system. YES Prep—an acronym for Youth Engaged in Service--was founded 11 years ago by Chris Barbic, a Teacher for America alumnus who shaped his vision around a singular goal: Every student is expected to go to a four-year college, succeed there and return to give back to their community. More than 90% of YES Prep students are first-generation college-bound; 80% come from low-income families and 96% are Hispanic or African-American. At YES Prep, every aspect of the school is designed to steer students away from stumbling blocks and onto success. So far, the culture-of-college formula seems to be working. "We are the leaders here," said Carol. "We have to set the record for everyone else to follow."
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Associated Press, 1/4/10
www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-01-04-yes-prep-col
lege_N.htm
 

Saturday, January 02, 2010 — Students Have Eyes on the Sky: Flight School New Program for Wannabe Pilots.   DETROIT, MI: Some juniors at Waterford Kettering High School soon will be soaring in single-engine Cessna 172s, as part of a new district program to cultivate wannabe pilots and aircraft mechanics. By the time the five 16-year-olds currently in the program graduate in June 2011, they will be licensed private pilots. The students so far have been studying aviation history and getting to know the planes parked outside Flight 101, the private flying school at Oakland County International Airport that is contracting with the Waterford School District to teach the kids. Next semester, they will begin intensive ground school. And once completed, will start flying in simulators, then actual planes. Sometime in their senior year, they will fly solo. Now that word has gotten out among the student body, next year's classes are expected to fill up quickly, school officials said. The students are in flight school at the airport from 12:45 to 2:10 p.m. three days a week. They spend many more hours studying at home--on top of their regular studies. As part of the program, they earn credits in science and technology toward their high school diplomas. A pilot's license can open many doors for a young graduate, said flight instructor Heather Jordan. They can continue to study flying and go on to become commercial pilots. Some become instructors. And some will ultimately go into aircraft mechanics, a well-paying high-skill trade. Student Nikole Fisher said she plans to be an air-traffic controller and thinks a pilot's license will help. Justin Smolinski said he looks forward to the day he can take his parents up in a plane. "Then I'll show them some stalls," he said, prompting his fellow students to laugh.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Detroit Free Press, 1/2/09
www.freep.com/article/20100102/NEWS03/1020363/1322/Wate
rford-students-have-eyes-on-the-sky
 

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 — Nevada Youth Forum Takes On Hot Topics, From Gay Marriage to Marijuana.   LAS VEGAS, NV: Las Vegas student SeHoon Park contributes an op-ed piece today in the Las Vegas Sun newspaper, writing, “For more than a half-century, the Sun Youth Forum has provided students across Southern Nevada with an opportunity to voice their opinions... On the issue of same-sex marriage, many in our group thought the time to recognize this relationship has come. Although many found the idea of gay marriage degrading to the tradition of marriage and generally unnatural, the majority pointed out the difference between religious and civic marriages and argued to define marriage to provide same-sex couples with the same legal benefits as married heterosexual couples....On the topic of curbing teen pregnancy, the majority agreed that the abstinence approach to sex education in schools did not work and that factors such as poverty, lack of awareness and availability, and the social stigma of obtaining contraceptives, have prevented teens from practicing safe sex. Some brought up that a joint effort between a better-educated public (parents, friends, etc.) and the schools could lead to a society with fewer pregnant teens... On the state of the high school education system in Nevada, many criticized poor budgeting at the district and local levels, coupled with reduced funding, which has left the schools in a precarious situation. Many schools have been equipped with new technology, but it has become obvious from the students’ perspectives that without proper training, these tools are wasted. The students suggested an income tax that would be dedicated to education, increased benefits for teachers coming to Nevada, and a system to better qualify teachers... Other intelligent discussions included immigration, legalization of prostitution and marijuana for economic benefits, substance abuse, and the creation of youth-friendly activities in Las Vegas.” Park concludes that “Students today are becoming more involved in politics. We have finally realized what it takes to make a difference in society... Listen to the youth, because this is our home, too.”
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the Las Vegas Sun, 12/30/09
www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/dec/30/teens-take-hot-top
ics-gay-marriage-marijuana/
 

Monday, December 28, 2009 — With DNA Testing, Students Learn What’s What in Their Neighborhood.  NEW YORK, NY: The New York Times reports that few of Brenda Tan’s classmates at Trinity School understood what she was doing when she went around requesting a single strand of hair from each of them, then subjecting the hair to DNA testing and research. The test was part of a project that Ms. Tan, 17, and Matt Cost, 18, conducted with Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History to study DNA barcoding. That process involves identifying species based on a single gene rather than the compete set of genes in a cell or organism. The students spent four months collecting 217 samples of organisms in their neighborhoods and found that they were surrounded by traces of 95 species. Most of the conclusions were expected, until they examined a tiny specimen that they had found lying on its back in a West Side apartment. What first appeared to be a dead American cockroach could be a previously undocumented species of roach. So Mr. Cost and Ms. Tan collected a few more examples, searching the basements of other buildings. The DNA sequence of the specimens showed a 4 percent difference from any of the roughly 65,000 species in the database — which, in genetic terms, is colossal. But further study is required before it can be determined whether the two students came across a new species. Mr. Cost and Ms. Tan worked closely with Dr. Mark Stoeckle, a researcher at Rockefeller University, who had run a similar project a year ago with two other Trinity students and found that the fish in sushi restaurants in the city had been misrepresented. Mr. Cost and Ms. Tan discovered that 11 of 66 typical household food items were mislabeled, including sheep’s milk cheese that was in fact made of cow’s milk, venison dog treats that were made of beef and sturgeon caviar that was actually Mississippi paddlefish. Perhaps just as amazing was that a hot dog bought on the street showed nothing but cow DNA. “You could have a filet of fish, just the stuff you might throw on your grill, and an expert who spent his whole life couldn’t tell you what it was by looking at it,” Mr. Cost said. “But with this, it’s so simple.” Ms. Tan plans to study biology in college, while Mr. Cost hopes to pursue sequences in a different form — music.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: The New York Times, 12/27/09
www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/nyregion/27dna.html
 

Thursday, December 17, 2009 — Missouri Students Pushing for Road Improvements.  SPRINGFIELD, MO: Willard High School students have collected more than 1,200 signatures on a petition to improve U.S. 160 between Willard and Springfield. Thursday they made their plea before the Ozarks Transportation Organization. “This is a dangerous road, and it sparked our attention when three of our classmates were killed in a tragic accident,” said sophomore Charlie Bird. “We would like a change, and we think it’s a necessary change for the growth of Willard. More and more cars will be on the road, and it’s necessary.” The Oct. 8 crash claimed the lives of three Willard High students whose car hydroplaned into the path of a pickup during a torrential downpour. Kearsten Jones, a senior, said people from surrounding communities frequently travel U.S. 160, and would benefit from a safer four-lane highway. The road currently is two lanes. “We understand this is not something that will take place immediately and will be costly,” Jones said. “But we’re trying to think of our friends and family, for the future, and we just want to try to save people’s lives. We think it’s really worth it.” Sophomore Matt Bryant said the highway is a major route that students use to get to Willard High. A large number of Conco quarry trucks also use the road, making it a challenge for young drivers. “In addition to this petition that we’ve started, we’ve also worked toward safer driving for Willard,” Bird said. “We helped get a seat belt ordinance passed. We’re just doing everything we can. We really think our community needs this to help save lives.” The youths drew a round of applause from OTO members for speaking out. Mayor Jim O’Neal, who chaired Thursday’s meeting, said the $10 million four-lane project remains a high priority with the OTO and Missouri Department of Transportation.
 
For FULL STORY, go to: the News-Leader.com, 12/17/09
www.news-leader.com/article/20091217/BREAKING01/9121703
0/1007/NEWS01/Willard+High+students+pushing+for+road+improvements