education – Page 4 – Notes n Letters

Fairfax schools join green alliance

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Rory Witter, a first grader at Daniels Run Elementary, places a birdseed cake in a tree.

Fairfax County Public Schools — already recognized nationally for its commitment to environmental education — has united with some of the largest school districts in the country to support environmental sustainability.

Joining the Green Schools Alliance District Collaborative with New York City, Chicago and other large school districts will help Fairfax obtain favorable prices for materials that advance conservation and environmental sustainability, school officials said. The group will also share ideas, attempt to influence policy and promote environmental education.

Loudoun student heads to Antarctica

As a student at the Loudoun Academy of Science, Andrea Mares has mingled with residents of remote Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay. She has traveled to Austria to work with a company that manufactures solar panels, and she has presented the results of a collaborative research project to judges in Singapore.

This month, the high school senior will add Chile to her list of educational travels, en route to her most far-flung destination yet: Antarctica.

Teen’s nonprofit tutors hundreds of kids

Arvind Chava believes that a good education is the pathway to a better life. And the 17-year-old high school senior is doing something about it — not only for himself, but also for hundreds of children in southeastern Fairfax County.

Two years ago, he started STEMWISE, a nonprofit organization that provides after-school tutoring and online classes to about 400 children, many of whom are from low-income families. Through the program, Arvind and about 50 of his classmates at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology help children with math and science at 10 community centers.

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Washington Post, December 9, 2015

They’re no dummies!

It was harrowing, student nurse Lisa Bowen said.

Her patient was undergoing a medical procedure on his kidney. Shortly after Bowen attached an IV to give him blood, he began showing signs of a severe allergic reaction.

“I can’t breathe,” he gasped. His arm felt itchy, he said, and his heart began racing. Bowen quickly detached the IV and called for a doctor.

Although allergic reactions can be life-threatening, Bowen never worried that her patient would die — because he was not alive. He was one of a growing number of high-tech, lifelike manikins that the George Washington University School of Nursing in Ashburn uses to train students.

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Washington Post, December 6, 2015

After-school program helps low-income families

Volunteer tutor Lauren Barber (center) helps children with their reading and homework in one of the after-school classrooms at INMED’s Family and Youth Opportunity Center in Sterling.

As part of its growing presence in the Sterling area, INMED Partnerships for Children has begun offering a free after-school program for children from low-income families.

INMED launched the program, which provides tutors and mentors to help children with homework, at its Family and Youth Opportunity Center on Ridgetop Circle this month. The center serves children ages 6 to 12 who live in Sterling-area neighborhoods with a high percentage of low-income families, said Maria Vasquez, executive director of the Opportunity Center. Many of the children’s parents do not speak English, she said.

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Washington Post, November 29, 2015

Civil War artifacts donated

In 1861, Union Army Capt. Edward Todd of the 2nd Vermont Infantry was wounded at the Battle of First Manassas. He went home to Vermont for two years to recover before returning to fight in several more Civil War battles in Virginia.

More than 150 years later, Todd’s wartime haversack — a large, purselike bag he used to carry personal belongings — has returned to Manassas. The haversack is part of a collection of Civil War artifacts donated to the Manassas Museum in the summer by Northern Virginia Community College and retired history professor Charles Poland Jr.

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Washington Post, November 29, 2015

Manassas-area children’s choirs

About 70 Manassas-area children are joining their voices in song as members of a new choral group that began rehearsing last month.

The Greater Manassas Children’s Choir, an offshoot of the Manassas Chorale, is divided by age into two singing groups, each with a director. Becky Verner leads about 50 children in grades 5 through 8, and Susan Dommer is head of a smaller group of children in grades 2 through 4.

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Washington Post, October 11, 2015

A glimpse into an astronaut’s life

Forget packing for a jaunt to the beach. Kids visiting the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly are setting their sights on a much more ambitious destination: Mars.

At the Astronaut Academy, the latest offering in the TechQuest program at the Northern Virginia offshoot of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, children are using an alternate-reality game to get an idea of what it’s like to be an astronaut.

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Washington Post, October 4, 2015

Theater students perform at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

A group of 11 theater students from Rock Ridge High School in Ashburn took their act to the famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland last month.

All the students performed at the festival — including in an original one-act play written by one of the students — and they saw at least 10 other shows, their teacher, Tony Cimino-Johnson, said.

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Washington Post, September 13, 2015

Q & A with Riverside H.S. principal

Riverside High School in Leesburg will open Aug. 31 as the 15th high school in Loudoun County. The school is in the Lansdowne development, near Belmont Ridge Middle School and the National Conference Center.

Riverside, which has a capacity of 1,600, will open with 820 freshmen, sophomores and juniors.

Doug Anderson, 48, is Riverside’s principal. A graduate of Radford University, Anderson has been an educator for 21 years. Most recently, he was principal of Broad Run High School for four years. He began his career as a social studies teacher in Fairfax County, where he taught for 11 years before coming to Loudoun in 2004 as an assistant principal at Broad Run.

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Washington Post, August 23, 2015