Three schools winSTEM competition
Three Arkansas middle schools are among nine schools in four states named Chain Reaction Challenge winners in a contest organized by the Garver engineering company to mark the firm's 100th anniversary.
Garver provided 100 science and technology kits and monetary donations to 100 schools across its 11-state service area and asked students to build and video "Rube Goldberg-style chain-reaction contraptions" to be judged by Garver engineers.
A Rube Goldberg-style machine is one that accomplishes a simple task in a complicated or multi-step way.
Winning schools in Arkansas -- where Garver is headquartered -- were Butterfield Trail Middle School in Van Buren, Henderson Middle School in Little Rock and Russellville Middle School. The other winning schools were in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama.
The winning schools received an additional $1,000 for their science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs, also known as STEM programs.
Teen wins awardin global contest
Nikita Rohila from Stuttgart High School received a third-place award in the Addiction Science category at the 2019 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix.
The annual fair is the world's largest science competition for high school students.
Nikita's project was titled "Trends and Factors for Risky Behavior Among Adolescents."
The 15-year-old sophomore developed a survey to identify trends and factors in the risk-taking behaviors and decision-making skills of nearly 100 teens 14-18 years old. She asked about factors that could represent or trigger stress, including alcohol use in multiple contexts, physical fighting and gun violence, excuses for failures, reckless driving and not wearing seat belts, poor nutrition, and social environments.
Results revealed three significant contributing factors to risky behaviors: unhealthy amounts of smartphone and social media use, sleep deprivation and bullying victimization.
Art students givenThea scholarships
The North Little Rock-based Thea Foundation has just about concluded the 2018-19 fiscal year with the awarding of 36 scholarships to high school students for art and performances, the art advocacy organization's leaders announced last week.
The number of scholarships is up from 30 awarded in the previous year and brings the total number of scholarships granted since 2002 to 399 and almost $2.3 million. There are six different competitions to enter: visual arts, performing arts, slam poetry, creative writing, fashion design, and film, which is done in partnership with the Arkansas Cinema Society.
Additionally the organization has provided -- in partnership with DonorsChoose -- more than $118,919 this year in art supplies and creative materials for schools, affecting some 88 schools.
And the Thea organization supports Thea's Arts Reconstruction program that provides training to Arkansas teachers in new visual arts mediums.
Thea's aim is to promote the importance of the arts in the education of Arkansas's youth, reverse the trend of budget cuts to arts programming and help young people across the state receive meaningful educations and financial help for higher education.
NLR High programgets tech upgrade
North Little Rock High School's EAST Initiative has received $30,000 in electronic equipment after entering and winning an office makeover contest.
The contest was sponsored by PCM and Intel Corp.
Students in the program submitted a description of what new computer equipment would do to help improve their classroom learning experience.
The $30,000 award was one of three such awards given to winners across the country.
The new equipment includes five Intel Core i9 processor based PCs with Intel Optane memory, one HP Sprout Computer system, one HP Elitebook notebook, one 75-inch Viewsonic Interactive Touch Display with Intel Unite Collaboration software, one 65-inch Viewsonic Interactive Touch Display with Intel Unite Collaboration software, two Logitech Meet Up camera conferencing systems and one 3-D printer.
Stanley Whisnant is the EAST Initiative facilitator at North Little Rock High. EAST stands for Environmental and Spatial Technology. Students in the course use technology to improve or resolve community and school issues.
Metro on 05/27/2019