News CISOC is looking for a biotechnology company to adopt a high school team for The Green Awakening Math and Science Initiative. Please contact the CISOC office at 919-967-6677 if you think your company would be interested in this exciting new project. News Stories Carrboro Citizen - July 19 - Freshmen take on green tech by Susan Dickson The Herald-Sun July 6, 2008 - by Keely Stockett CHAPEL HILL -- It seems everything's "going green" these days -- and now, you can add summer school to that list. Communities in Schools of Orange County, an organization focused on keeping kids in school, opened The Green Awakening in mid-June. Held at Smith Middle School, the three-week summer program targets rising ninth-graders who struggle with math and science. But it's not your typical classroom experience. Forget the pencils and books: The Green Awakening revolves around eco-friendly projects and site visits to the science facilities at Duke, N.C. State and N.C. Central University. Sheila Sholes-Ross, the executive director of CIS, said there are 35 students enrolled in the program this summer. Those students were deemed eligible prior to the June 16 start date on a case-by-case basis. "We worked with school social workers, counselors, and principals," Sholes-Ross said. "They understood how important this program was, and they assured us that their personnel would meet with us to determine the students who would receive the most benefits in this program." Mariela Martinez, 15, is one of those students. And at first, she said she wasn't happy about it. "I thought it would be like school," Martinez explained. "But you're always doing something with your hands. It's fun." Sholes-Ross said on most days, the students divide into groups and work on projects related to energy conservation or respect for the environment, such as building solar ovens or constructing wireless transmitters. Like many of the other students, Martinez and her partner, Maria Perez, 13, said their favorite project involved building a solar-powered toy car. Martinez and Perez said their car, aptly named Speedy, won the 12-meter race in which all the groups participated. Ken Nagel, a science teacher at Apex High School who works with The Green Awakening, said those hands-on projects are essential for getting students excited about subjects they struggle with during the school year. "We really have made a lot of good connections," Nagel said. "It's the kind of thing that keeps a teacher teaching." In addition to Nagel, instructors include Chapel Hill-Carrboro district teachers as well as Duke and UNC graduate and undergraduate students. Several rising high school juniors and seniors also offer assistance and act as peer mentors. Sholes-Ross said the Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro districts have needed a program like The Green Awakening for years. "[Local] human services has always praised CIS for the good job that it does in supporting kids," Sholes-Ross said. "But they kept asking, 'What are you doing to ensure that once kids leave the eighth grade, they will be successful?'" A year and a half ago, Sholes-Ross said she finally came up with an answer to that question. She and her colleagues decided to create a summer program for students who were about to enter high school, and she wanted it to focus on math and science, the two areas where middle school students often are the weakest. But they decided to add a twist to the enrichment program. "With everything that's going green, it needed to have a green approach and a green feel," Sholes-Ross said. As the brainstorming commenced, Sholes-Ross said they lacked one thing: funding. That's when she started "dreaming big" and wrote a grant to the Triangle Community Foundation, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction and the state Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Eventually, CIS received a total of $180,000 to start the program. Sholes-Ross also contacted Duke, UNC, N.C. State and N.C. Central University, all of which agreed to help with the program by offering use of their facilities or help with instruction. Stephanie Bland, the director of programs at CIS, said she hopes The Green Awakening will eventually have a strong presence during the academic year. "We'd like it to be a club in the schools and have biotechnology companies and green businesses adopt a team at each high school so they can still get that real-world application," Bland said. That interaction would provide students with networking opportunities, Bland said, as well as potential access to "green-collar" jobs, a growing field of employment that supports eco-friendly projects. Sholes-Ross stressed that the future of The Green Awakening has not been fully developed, as the CIS staff is focused solely on completing the summer session. Judging from the progress made in the past weeks, however, Sholes-Ross said she is confident the program will become a permanent fixture. "Once we review, we will learn from mistakes, and we will have more people come on board," she said. "And our greatest marketing tool will be the kids who are involved in it now, who are learning and who are having fun." © 2008 by The Durham Herald Company. All rights reserved. TOP PO Box 9454 · 151 E. Rosemary St., Ste. 207 · Chapel Hill, NC 27515 · Tel: (919) 967-6677 · Fax: (919) 967-2772