Mrs. Kern’s Class Creates Self-Contained Ecosystems

By fifth grade, most children have become increasingly curious about the complexity of the world around them and about the relationships between the living and nonliving elements in their environment. News stories, community and school projects, and books that promote ecology introduce them to environmental issues.

They are fascinated by how they can help save the environment. This unit built on students’ growing interest in their environment by giving them opportunities to investigate relationships between living things and to better understand the complex trade-offs that must be made to reach acceptable solutions to environmental challenges.

Concepts the students are learning through this unit are: Create a model ecosystem to learn more about living organisms. Organisms in an ecosystem have dependent and independent
relationships.

Nature and human activity may affect an ecosystem in beneficial or harmful ways. People can develop solutions to lessen the effects of pollutants.

Living organisms in the ecosystems included alfalfa sprigs, isopods (pill bugs), crickets, snails and tadpoles.



Jeffrey Yeh Earns Congressional Award Gold Medal

Chartiers Valley High School junior Jeffrey Yeh has earned the Congressional Award Gold Medal. He will be honored on June 19th 2008 on Capitol Hill in recognition of his voluntarily efforts in the community, achievements in personal development, physical fitness and expedition/exploration. It took Jeffrey more than two years to accomplish this goal.

The Congressional Award Gold Medal is the highest distinction given by the U.S. Congress in acknowledgement of youth accomplishments. To earn the Congressional Award Gold Medal, each individual must complete a minimum of 400 hours of voluntary public service, 200 hours of personal development activities, 200 hours of physical fitness, and four consecutive days and nights of an exploration or expedition.

Yeh performed his community service with the Boys & Girls Club, Scott Township Library, and through CV Primary School tutoring.

An accomplished violinist who was selected through audition as Concert Master for the recent Pennsylvania Music Educator’s Association Regional Orchestra, Yeh worked to improve his musicianship, learned concertos, and studied to improve his PSAT score to fulfill the requirement for personal development. He also studies Chinese language and culture through Pittsburgh’s Chinese American School.

To complete the award’s expedition/exploration requirement, Jeffrey traveled to Taiwan and kept a journal detailing his experiences of the trip.

Remembering My Lai
A Vietnam veteran visits Chartiers Valley high school to recount one of the darkest chapters in U.S. military history.

Unlikely Friendships
A trip to one of Africa’s most desperate countries teaches a CV student that people aren’t so different after all.

Officer of the Year
Scott Township’s Police Department unanimously names Alan Ballo its top cop.

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