1Carteret: Students. Sports. Success.

Newsflash: Kids of the Croatan

First it was the New York Times. Then, we heard them on Talk107’s Youth Points with Lockwood Phillips…and we didn’t think it could get much bigger. Now the Broad Creek Middle School student-activists have been featured on ABC’s World News Tonight (video from Saturday, May 20, at 6:30). Reporter John Yang of ABC spent a day at BCMS capturing their story.

These students and their teacher have created a buzz heard around the world. Here are some more waves the “Kids of the Croatan” have made in the blogosphere:

Forest Conservation Pool

Rural People, Rural Policy

REP America: Jim DiPeso’s Weblog

One Atlantic

Free Internet Press

North Carolina Conservation Network Mainblog

Interface South May 2006

Virtual Birder B-mail

Public Education Newsblast May 6-12

BCMS Student-Activists get a Political Response

The Bulldog students are fighting mad about the prospect of losing some of their national forest…and they have connected with their best shots. Today, they are featured in a New York Times article:

NEWPORT, N.C., May 4 — “What is the deal with cutting down the Croatan National Forest?” the letter began. “How would you like it if we cut down some trees around your house?”

A federal official’s proposal to sell land in places like the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina has brought protests across the nation.

Haley Wester, a sixth grader at the Broad Creek Middle School here, was voicing the sentiments of her classmates and North Carolina’s top officials when she wrote Mark Rey, under secretary of agriculture, two months ago to protest his proposal to sell 309,000 acres of National Forest land across the country, including nearly 10,000 in North Carolina. (Read more)

Curriculum is at its best when content knowledge and skills are passionately and creatively applied to solve real-world problems. Kudos to their teacher Mr. Dave Holland for designing the learning opportunity. Kudos to the sixth grade science students for doing their bit to rock the planet!

CHS Students Expound on Nature v. Nurture

The more I pop my head up from administrivia, the more I am reminded of why we do what we do. I uncovered the following student writing gems in some old e-mails I’d been saving.

When it comes to nature v. nurture, I would have to side more with nurture. Of course, countless studies and endless lab experiments have proven that there are certain traits that are definitely determined by one’s genetic make-up. I do believe, however; that the way these traits, or characteristics, show themselves depends on one’s environmental surroundings, to which these traits must adapt. (read more of this rumination from CHS student PHI in his blog On Life and Whatnot.)

Then, from another class, ShawnC offers this witty and insightful entry:

If there is a stain on my jeans, the first reaction I have is to wash it out. Well what if you could use this concept to wash a much more important pair of jeans…..your genes. Scientists today are not actually washing genes, but are experimenting with mutating them; hoping to change the characteristic aspects of the being itself. So is this going to prove that genes play a bigger part in your daily life than previously thought? (read more)

Most interesting after each blog essay is the feedback from the teacher. My observation is that writing and digital literacy have important places in this class.