Mesa Beat

This news came into the Tribune:

McDonald’s Owner/Operators of Arizona and the Arizona Parent Teacher Association (PTA) announced today that Mesa’s Crismon Elementary is a Readers Are Leaders Award winner, receiving a $1,000 grant for its school library.
Crismon PTA is one of 10 Arizona PTAs receiving $1,000 grants for its literacy programs from McDonald’s Readers Are Leaders Award program. The grant program provides funding for the books and reading materials for school libraries to enhance book collections and offer titles that kids will want to drop everything and read.
Applications were judged on creativity, ability to make good use of books, and solid strategy for long-term reading promotion activities.
Crismon PTA President Susan Hernandez stated that the school promotes reading and literacy primarily through its Accelerated Reading Program. The success of the program has encouraged the children to do research and learn more about various subjects.
Crismon Elementary plans to use the grant money to build its Accelerated Reading Program and purchase a variety of resource books that will inspire their students quest for knowledge.
McDonald’s and Arizona PTA began the grant program in 2007 and have since awarded $35,000 to Arizona PTA school libraries.

This news came into the Tribune:
Rebecca Evans, Dobson High senior, won the grand prize at the 20th annual Arizona Japanese Speech Contest, at the University of Advancing Technology. She won a round-trip plane ticket to Japan. Connor Sungino, Dobson junior, took second place in Category A (first-year level).

In the annual competition, high school and college Japanese language students write, memorize and present their own speeches to judges and an audience.

Next year’s contest will be at Dobson, the first time in the history of the contest that it will be conducted at a high school.

The Shores family donated a gong to Banner Children's Hospital for cancer patients to ring as they complete their treatment at the Mesa hospital.

Spencer Shores, a pediatric cancer patient at Banner Children’s Hospital, wanted to do something special for the hospital when he came to the end of his treatment program, something he could share with other kids like him. So, Spencer and his family on Friday, February 27, donated a ceremonial gong that a child can ring when they’ve come to the end of their chemo/radiation journey. It will be a new tradition at the hospital.

Lydia Hernandez and Izzie Magana built a motorized toy car in A World in Motion, with help from retired General Motors engineers and funding from SAE International.

This news came into the Tribune this week:

Taylor Junior High is partnering with General Motors and SAE International in an exciting hands-on program called A World in Motion.

The students in Taylor’s Advancement Via Individual Determination program are following lessons developed by engineers. Seventh-graders are making toy gliders. Eighth- and ninth-graders are creating motorized toy cars.

In the toy car program, for example, the students are involved in writing proposals, drawing sketches, and working with models to develop a plan to meet a specific set of design requirements. Force and friction, simple machines, levers and gears, torque and design are the core scientific concepts covered in this challenge.

The glider builders are exploring the relationship between force and motion and the effects of weight and lift. Students are learning the relationships between data analysis and variable manipulations, and the importance of understanding consumer demands.

The objective of the eight-week program is to “be an engineer.” Students receive a request from a company to build the toys, then they must learn about the mechanics of the project, build a prototype, test and record their data, build a final model and present their project to the company and community representatives.

Six retired GM engineers have been working with the students to guide them and help them build and test the toys. The final presentation is set for 8 to 10:30 a.m. March 4 in the Taylor gym. The GM volunteers will be there as well as parents and other invited guests.

AWIM is designed to motivate the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. SAE International provided the curriculum and materials, free of charge, to Karon Rascon, Taylor’s AVID program coordinator.