Nature Project Plants Seeds of Knowledge
Ninety Burbank elementary school students will get the chance to smell the roses this summer at the Habitat/Environmental Learning program, a gardening project sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The participants from Washington, Jefferson and Providence elementary schools will create hummingbird and butterfly habitats during the six-week program, and learn how to identify native plants, insects and birds. The young botanists will also work on the chaparral ecosystem in Washington School’s 10,000-square-foot garden.
“It’s a sophisticated program,” said project coordinator Dick Moskun. “They get a sense of how we coexist with other creatures in nature and they learn that with proper care they will see the fruits of their labor.”
PROGRAM NOTES
Museum Mavens: Eight students from Grant High School in Van Nuys, in conjunction with the Japanese American National Museum, are receiving docent training for internships at the downtown cultural facility. After completing the course, funded by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, each of the participants will present a multicultural lesson to local students.
A Trip to the Theater: Students from San Fernando High School’s Spanish Speakers and English-as-a-Second-Language classes were recently treated to a presentation of “Desfile de Extranas Figuras,” or “Parade of the Strange Figures,” at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts theater downtown. The GTE-sponsored field trip offered a first-time live theater experience for many of the 83 participating students.
Young Mariners: Meadow Oaks School sixth-graders put their science skills to the test recently at the Catalina Island Marine Institute, where the Calabasas students spent three days hiking and snorkeling. The institute’s marine scientists helped the young biologists identify native wildlife, plants and marine animals.
“The kids can learn only so much from books,” said sixth-grade teacher Shawn Burch. “But when you’re swimming in a kelp bed, or come face-to-face with deer on the trail, it brings the science to life.”
EVENTS
Dedication: In celebration of Chatsworth Hills Academy’s 20th anniversary, students and teachers will attend a special ceremony Friday, at which members of the Chumash tribe--whose ancestors used to inhabit the land where the school now sits--will rededicate the land. The festivities will continue on Saturday with a 5K walk, followed by a family picnic.
Hang It Up: Women in Today’s Society, Cleveland High School’s feminist club, is serving as a local sponsor for the National Organization for Women’s Clothesline Project, an international effort to create awareness about female victims of violence. T-shirts depicting women’s personal stories of domestic violence will be hanging on clotheslines at the Reseda campus today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
KUDOS
Science Scholars: Chaminade College Preparatory’s Brent Schockley, 17, walked away with a first-place, a $7,625 scholarship from Drexel University and a Grand Award scholarship for engineering at the recently concluded 1998 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Texas. Classmate Dean Yamaguchi, also 17, won a Superior Award from the U.S. Army and a first-place, $3,000 scholarship from the U.S. Air Force for his biology project.
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