The Sparta Area School District has partnered with the Department of Defense to host a STEM camp for students in military-connected schools, WLAX-TV reports.
Sparta is the only school district in the state taking part in the STEMKAMP program, which is funded by the military and offered to 10 schools across the country.
“Military kids move every two to three years, and so there’s a lot of gaps in their education, Superintendent Dr. Amy Van Deuren told the TV station. “Sometimes they miss out on some of the fun because they’re moving.”
Longtime Kenosha teacher Holly Stanfield has received the 2021 Stephen Schwartz Musical Theatre Teacher of the Year Award.
A veteran theater teacher at Bradford High School, part of the Kenosha Unified School District, has been recognized with a national theater award, according to the Kenosha News.
The 2021 Stephen Schwartz Musical Theatre Teacher of the Year Award, which “honors exceptional high- and middle-school musical theater teachers,” includes a $5,000 cash prize.
“It’s an award for the whole department,” she told the newspaper. “That’s the beauty of musical theater: We have to do this together or it doesn’t happen.”
Read the full story to learn more about Stanfield, the theater department and how they’re adapting to COVID.
Prentice School Districts students erect a three-bedroom home as part of a classroom project. Districts students have built 13 homes in the community.
High schoolers in Prentice have again designed and built a home from scratch, the district’s 13th, WAOW-TV reports.
Tech Ed teacher Don Anderson told the station these projects teach students skills they can carry with them their whole lives, even if they don’t join a trade.
“Being here and being here on time, getting along with other students,” he said. “Then the other part also are the physical skills of hanging drywall, swinging a hammer, and putting in wood screws.”
At least one of the students, Kayden Mundt, is learning a trade.
“I work construction now, I’ve been doing a lot of drywall work,” he said. “It just so happened that I was put on a job where I learned to do my job from here.”
This side of the mural includes the “Sources of Strength “logo, while the other side features a Fibonacci spiral. This series of numbers — in which each one is the sum of the two preceding ones — is seen throughout nature and mathematics.
Art students planned the project and were assisted by artist-in-residence Connie Greany of Legacy Murals, according to the TV station. One side features the logo of “Sources of Strength,” a youth mental health program.
Principal Brian Wunderlich said, “I think it will be a good reminder to our kids of all of the work that they did to overcome and the things that they either relied on friends or relied on teachers or relied on their parents, and that there is hope that they can kind of overcome anything if they use the resources around them to do so.”
This class of Oconto 2nd graders wrote a book called “Sprinkling Kindness.”
A second-grade class at Oconto Elementary School wrote and illustrated a book about spreading kindness that has been recognized by a publishing company, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reports.
Caroline Laurin-Young’s class researched, wrote and illustrated their book, “Sprinkling Kindness,” which was one of 50 finalists in the 2020-21 National Book Challenge hosted by Studentreasures Publishing.
“This book project was just one of the many activities our class did when celebrating Kindness Week in the Fall,” Laurin-Young told the newspaper. “That week had such an impact on the class, that we continued doing Acts of Kindness throughout the year.”
Racine students are working with community partners to protect the Lake Michigan shoreline, FOX6 reports.
Janell Decker, RUSD executive director of curriculum and instruction, told the TV station the goal is for students to not just to learn what they can do to protect the shoreline, but also the promising futures that can rise from one of our greatest resources.
“The careers and the planning and how many pieces of our community infrastructure is attached to our lake,” Decker said.
Students from Wheatland Center School compete in an engineering challenge Nov. 11. They built a machine that could grab, lift and place an object on a board.
Students in Kenosha County’s Wheatland Center School took top honors at an engineering challenge in Milwaukee Nov. 11, the news website westofthei.com reported.
In their third year competing in the Fluid Power Challenge at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, students from the the school’s PATHS Academy outperformed 26 other teams to win the Overall Champion Award.
Wheatland students left for Milwaukee early on Nov. 11 amidst the falling snow and came back with the coveted hardware.
Students from all over Milwaukee participated in the event held at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Each group had 5 weeks to design a machine that uses hydraulic and pneumatic power that can rotate, lift, and grab an object and move it on a challenge board in order to score points.
“It was easier this year because I knew what to expect, but it was still challenging to build an efficient machine to accomplish the task,” said WCS student Mason Biehn.
From first recognizing you’re hungry to remembering where the bread is stored, there are more steps involved in making a sandwich than most people realize.
Considering those implicit steps and the difficulty they pose for people living with dementia was one of the lessons of a Baraboo High School health class Friday led by Gina Laack, a dementia care specialist with the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Eagle Country.
“Simple activities like making a sandwich or getting dressed that we think are so simple can become very daunting and difficult for individuals living with dementia,” Laack said.
Through 90-minute sessions, students in Julie Jensen’s six 10th-grade health classes became the first high school students in Wisconsin to be trained as “Dementia Friends” on Thursday and Friday, according to Laack. The program, originally started in the United Kingdom, came to the U.S. as Dementia Friends USAand seeks to inform more people about what it can be like to live with dementia and how to help.
The Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute adopted the program last year and trained 38 Master Trainers, including Laack, last fall. After the local resource center contacted the Baraboo School District, Jensen took up the offer to bring a trainer to her students, noting that the topic fit in well with the health curriculum.
“I think dementia is an issue in our society and is becoming more and more of an issue,” Jensen said. “A lot of these students are actually seeing this and dealing with it in their own homes and their own families, and to give them an education on how to communicate better with their loved ones is really a good skill to have.”
After Saturday’s Post Prom ended in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and nearly 1,100 high school students and their dates returned home, cleanup quickly began inside Festival Hall.
Outside, the red carpet stayed put for the second prom of the weekend.
On Sunday evening, more than 100 other young people, along with 200 volunteers, refilled Festival Hall for A Night to Remember, a prom for people with special needs.
“That’s what’s so special about both of these proms; I think Racine really understands how special both proms are for their communities,” said Sara Luther, one of the event’s organizers.
All high school seniors, including those with special needs, are invited to the traditional promenade on Saturday. But this second event, established by Great Lakes Church in 2014, caters to people with special needs and ages 13-30.
Mike Klug has quickly developed a deep appreciation for what A Night to Remember offers. His son Kevin — who has been diagnosed with epilepsy, a brain injury and autism — went to the traditional prom twice in high school. But A Night to Remember has become a highlight of his year, every year, for the past six years, he said.
“They’re kind of on stage and feel proud of who they are and being part of the community, and that doesn’t always happen,” Klug said. “That specialness lasts longer than one night. It builds confidence and makes them feel like they’re part of the community.”
The football
program at Luxemburg-Casco High School is holding the Spartan Influence Camp
this Saturday, May 18, for students with disabilities, ages 5 to 21 years old.
The camp is designed to give participating students the opportunity to be
active while learning more about football.
Free of charge,
the event is from 12:00-1:30 p.m. at the Luxemburg Sports Complex, 113 North
Main Street in Luxemburg. Participants will receive a T-shirt and medal; water
and a snack also will be provided. Roughly 20 area youth are expected to take
part.
“Our football
program is based on servant leadership and service learning, and we believe
this is a great way to give back to our school and community,” says Dillon
Maney, head football coach at Luxemburg-Casco High School. “The game of
football has given many of our athletes great opportunities, and our athletes
want to do the same for other people.”
Six members of
the Luxemburg-Casco football team are serving as 2019 camp coordinators: Ben
Naze, Mason Renard, Reece Worachek, Matt Cravillion, Matt Dorn and Andrew
Spengler.
The event will
be held rain or shine, and may move into the school’s gymnasium if the weather
is inclement. Registration at the door will be accepted, or it can be done in
advance at http://bit.ly/LCfbcamp.
Participants do not need to be residents of the Luxemburg-Casco School
District.
