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(If you have any issues with the formatting of this newsletter, or viewing the photos, please view it on our website<http://osd.wednet.edu/news/friends_of_osd/january_2010 ) Dear Friends of OSD, Although 2010 is still young, we are having a great year with lots of success stories from our classrooms and strong community support. I'm happy to share some of those items with you. I also would like to remind you that voters will be considering a capital projects levy for our schools in the February 9th special election. I encourage you to look at detailed information about this levy on our website (http://osd.wednet.edu) and remember to vote on or before February 9th, 2010. Thanks for all you do on behalf of our students and staff in the Olympia School District . Cell Structures Take Over Avanti High School One of the challenges of teaching about cells is understanding something so small and complicated. Avanti Science teacher Chris Sogn has come up with a remedy– his students created massive cell displays in the hallway at Avanti High School; displays that allow observers to get a look inside these complicated structures. The students used different materials to represent cell walls and small lights to show the DNA structure inside of a cell. As part of the unit, Sogn and Avanti student Jay Collins participated in a seminar at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle known as “Hutch High.” While at Hutch High, Jay and other students from the region participated in gene spooling and DNA research. Jefferson Students Try To Make Perfect Show The Olympian had a wonderful article recently about students at Jefferson Middle School who work at Channel J, the morning news program at the school helping students and staff keep up-to-date with the latest school events. The shows are recorded live and re-broadcast on TCTV on weekends. It’s a great chance for students to learn more about video production, journalism and computer graphics. Hats off to the students who come in before school to organize this broadcast. To read The Olympian article, go to http://bit.ly/befVwB McKenny Students Celebrate Ellis Island Day Fifth grade students in Linda Nelson’s class recently completed a month-long social studies exploration of immigration, heritage and family with a trip to Ellis Island. Well, it wasn’t the one in New York, but a newly-created immigrant processing center at McKenny Elementary School. Parents became Immigration and Naturalization officers and asked the students who were entering Ellis Island questions about their health, vocation and character. All passed, but some had to go through appeals to do so. McKenny principal Brendon Chertok presented the Loyalty Oath to all new Americans who celebrated the hope for a new future. OSD Buses Perfect in Washington State Patrol Winter Inspection A few weeks ago, an inspector from the Washington State Patrol showed up at the Transportation Department to conduct their regular inspection of our bus fleet. They went through 19 buses from top to bottom and gave us a 100% compliance rating once again. Congrats to all our hard-working crew at the Transportation Department! Centennial Elementary School Nominated for Blue Ribbon Award It was wonderful to receive the news recently from the U.S. Department of Education that Centennial Elementary School is one of only seven schools in Washington State nominated to apply for the 2010 Blue Ribbon School Award. The prestigious award is for schools that either show dramatic improvement in student achievement or show consistently high student achievement performance in both reading and math. Centennial meets the high performing criterion. Congratulations to all of the staff, students, families and principal Alice Drummer for their consistent work to make sure all Centennial students succeed. Olympia High School Students Talk to Peers in Afghanistan Olympia High School students waited nervously in the library for the phone to connect. They were hoping to have a dialogue with about a dozen students in the Bamiyan Province of Afghanistan. Even though it was nearly 11:00 p.m. in Afghanistan, the connection went through and students had an hour-long dialogue about life in Afghanistan, how the U.S. involvement had changed their country and prospects for peace in Afghanistan. The event, organized by local peace groups, left the Olympia High School students with a new perspective on a country they know primarily through media reports. Prior to the conversation, the Olympia High School students had a chance to hear from Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie, as well as from Zahid Shariff, Professor at The Evergreen State College who provided some historical perspective. Lions Club Donates to Welcome Room The Olympia Host Lions Club has a long history of generous support for the students at Madison Elementary School. At the beginning of the school year, they donated supplies so all students would come to school the first day, ready to learn. Later in the fall, the Lions Club donated boxes of apples for students so they would have healthy snacks, and they provided new dictionaries to each 3rd grader at the school. This month, the Olympia Host Lions Club donated $500 to benefit the Welcome Room Program at Madison, which serves homeless students throughout our District. We currently have approximately 400 homeless students in our District, and the continued generosity of the Lions Club- as well as others who have contributed in some way this past year- mean we will continue to provide many necessities to our students who are impacted by poverty and homelessness. Children’s Hospital Adventure Lab Rolls To Hansen For Visit It was an exciting day for Hansen Elementary students as the Seattle Children's Hospital Science Adventure Lab rolled in. Fourth and fifth grade classes had the opportunity to visit the adventure lab, a large bus configured as a mobile state-of-the-art science lab. Students enjoyed learning about basic cell structure in a hands-on approach as they collected their own cheek cells and then isolated DNA from the cells. Students also learned that isolating DNA is the first step in advanced biotechnology applications such as cloning, DNA sequencing and DNA fingerprinting. Is CSI:Olympia on the horizon? OHS Hoopster Honored by KING 5 as Academic Achiever Marnie Brown has a bright future. She is interested in politics (she'd like to become a judge), a member of the National Honor Society, active in OHS student government and has a grade point average hovering above 3.9. Plus, she's a pretty good basketball p_layer_, having played on the girls' varsity team for all 4 years of high school. It's not a surprise, then, she was named an Academic Achiever this week by the KING 5 Sports Team. They've featured her in an excellent news story- go to http://bit.ly/aU5eVp for the story. Avanti High School Students Take Whale Exhibit to New Level Did you know a whale's tongue is as big as an elephant and that some of its blood veins are large enough to swim through? These are a few of the facts you’ll remember if you visited Avanti High School's Blue Whale Exhibit. Teacher John Hanby and his students literally filled the Knox gymnasium with a blow-up, 60 foot-long Blue Whale (not to mention her 25 foot-long calf). Visitors from several nearby elementary schools walked through the whale and inspected exhibits on whale blubber, baleen, krill and others. Teachers Earn National Board Certification Eight more teachers in the Olympia School District have earned their National Board Certification. These individuals were notified a few weeks ago that they had met the requirements of this rigorous process. They are: Jodi Boe and Candyce Burroughs from Washington Middle School, Debra High from Jefferson Middle School, Michele Neely from Madison Elementary School, Susan Rowell from Hansen Elementary School, Kristin Soderberg from Olympia High School, Chris Sogn from Avanti High School and Cecily Schmidt from Capital High School. Also, Pioneer teacher Cindy Johnson successfully renewed her National Board Certification. We will be recognizing these excellent teachers for their accomplishment at our School Board Meeting on February 8th. Hansen Students Have Hands-On Experience in Entomophagy (Bug Eating) There are some adventuresome eaters at Hansen Elementary School. Earlier this month, as part of an assembly led by David George Gordon, the nationally-renowned Bug Chef, students ate deep-fried mealworms, grasshopper ke-babs and scorpion scaloppine. Mr. Gordon, author of the Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, talked to students about how many bugs are in the foods we currently eat (like ketchup), how different cultures eat a variety of bugs and which bugs to avoid. Student volunteers helped cook the different dishes, and then any student with a permission slip had a chance to try the cooked cricket Chex Mix. It was an assembly that students at Hansen will remember for quite some time. Students Show Skills in Lego Robot Challenge Congratulations to our middle school teams from Jefferson and Reeves for their hard work at the recent Lego League Regional Competition held in Graham. Lego robots are required to perform a number of functions at these competitions, so students must be adept in engineering, computer programming, design and other higher-level thinking skills. The Jefferson Jag team placed 3rd out of 19 teams and also won the Research Project Award _base_d on their oral presentation and brochure design, qualifying them for the state championship in Bellevue. The Reeves team placed 9th out of 19 teams and won an “Over and Above” award. Both of these robotics teams are in their first year of competition, so it was great to see such wonderful results out of the gate. Toymaker Brings Science to Life for L.P. Brown Students For several years, toymaker Rick Hartmann has enlivened science for students by helping them build toys that rely upon key properties of physics or physical science. Hartmann _base_s his projects on the FOSS kits used by teachers in our schools. A couple of weeks ago, he helped 1st and 3rd grade students construct paddleboats to demonstrate the effects of power and motion. Students carefully put together their rubber-band powered boats, then took their projects outside to see how they worked and how design changes affected the speed of the boats. Hartmann will return later this spring to work with other students on a different project.