Weekly Media Roundup  May 13, 2015

Teaching Science (and More) Through Bunnies (New York Times, New York)

The Children’s Museum of the East End (CMEE) provides low-cost community programs for Spanish-speaking families in Long Island, including a weekly afterschool program called Ciencia en CMEE. Leah Oppenheimer, a social worker who works in the afterschool program, told the New York Times that Long Island’s Latino families “constitute a large, underserved population when it comes to education and culture,” and that CMEE hopes to fill the gap of available programs. Ciencia (“science” in Spanish) creatively weaves together a variety of subjects in its sessions. This week, the topic was bunny rabbits. The class explored the biological differences between European hares and New World cottontails, discussed how rabbits were introduced to Australia from Europe and created bunny-themed artwork.

Can Gaming Become an Interscholastic Sport? (Indianapolis Star, Indiana)

Video games are often a solitary activity, but Kerwin Rent hopes to gather isolated gamers with afterschool gaming clubs at Indianapolis schools. The games in Rent’s programs include sports, auto racing and fighting, no shooting games or extreme violence, and in order to qualify for city championships students also have to complete educational online exercises, including essays about technology. Rent hopes video gaming can offer a niche for students who don’t want to participate in sports or music and teach them about tech careers. “These are the kids who will build our software applications and solutions on the tech side in the future,” he told the Indianapolis Star.

Class Goes to the Dogs (Siskiyou Daily News, California)

A 6-foot-tall, 120 pound Malamute/shepherd mix named Bandit is helping children who have trouble reading. Every Wednesday, Bandit sits and listens while struggling readers and students with behavioral issues in the Safe After School Program read him stories. SAFE teacher Dawn Wallace said she’s already noticed drastic changes for students in just four months – kids with behavioral problems are increasingly kind to Bandit, and her students are growing more enthusiastic about reading. “He’s a very attentive audience for a child that is struggling,” she told the Siskiyou Daily News. “He’s a nonjudgmental party that the children can just be with.”

YES Students Planning Fundraiser for the Homeless (New Britain Herald, Connecticut)

Students in the Vance Elementary School Youth Enrichment and Sports (YES) afterschool program recently held a community pasta dinner to raise money to support New Britain’s homeless population. The YES program includes homework help, wellness instruction, sports activities and even acting lessons, but the core of the program is a “random act of kindness project,” which each participating school selected at the beginning of the year. Vance students chose to learn more about the homeless population and, after six months researching the issue of homelessness, sponsored a fundraiser for a local church to help with supplies for the weekly dinners they provide to the area homeless. “YES is important because our kids realize that doing good for others makes you feel good,” school district extended day programs facilitator Nancy Puglisi told the New Britain Herald.