Youthlearn News Archive 2006

International Call for Participation"Scenes and sounds of my city" Special Session 2006
Deadline 3 May 2006

"The UNESCO DigiArts Team invites young students and teachers to reflect on the theme of “scenes and sounds of my city” and to send to UNESCO a joint project proposal in group work that focuses on a specific topic or issue in relation to their urban environment or their experiences within urban surroundings.

Students select poems, create PowerPoint presentations that use graphics and text to enhance those poems, and then display their presentations as they read their poems aloud."
"Students will
- demonstrate understanding of the themes of a poem.
- choose art, photos, sound, quotes, and so on to create a multimedia presentation based upon their understanding of those themes.
- read a poem aloud while displaying the slide show.

This new report documents what committed educators, policymakers, and community leaders across the country are doing to reconnect out-of-school youth to the social and economic mainstream. It provides background on the serious high school dropout problem and describes in-depth what twelve communities are doing to reconnect dropouts to education and employment training. It also includes descriptions of major national program models serving out-of-school youth.

In the past, we've shared with the YouthLearn community our work as part of the team here at EDC assisting National Science Foundation's ITEST (IT Experiences for Students and Teachers) program. YouthLearn team members are liaisons to some of the more than 50 program grantees around the country and create many of the publications that illustrate promising practices reavealed through their efforts.

This activity teaches something about poetry and reading while focusing mainly on words and vocabulary building. You'll be taking a poem and substituting synonyms to see how the meaning and pattern stay the same even as the words change. Suggested variations include ideas for working with older kids and for incorporating song lyrics and making pictures to extend the activity.
Recommended Time

Variable, based on the length of the selected poem.

Get ready to teach poetry this month with a list of tips and great poems from The Academy of American Poets. Other great poetry sites for young kids include 'Giggle Poetry' and 'Kathi Mitchell's Poetry for Kids,' which has directions for teaching kids about lots of different types of poems.

Jason Kamras, a mathematics teacher at John Philip Sousa Middle School, in Washington, DC is one of the youngest honorees of the National Teacher of the Year program. Kamras was recently named one of Edutopia Magazine's 'Daring Dozen.' Follow this link [below] to find Edutopia's profile of Kamras, plus a 9-minute video interview and a complete interview transcript.

The American Honda Foundation Grants Program awards $40,000-$80,000 to organizations working in science education and with young people. The proposal is deadline May 1.

Faculty at the University of Houston's history department and College of Education have designed the "Digital History" web site to support the teaching of American history to K-12 students. The site includes an online textbook, annotated historical documents, and more than 70 interactive, inquiry-based modules. Students can view a timeline to see notable political, socio-economic, and cultural episodes in United States and world history. eXplorations, part of the site's inquiry-based activity section, offer students the chance to delve deeper into such topics as the early Puritans.

A new survey suggests that today's youth--and minorities in particular--are using cell phones more and more as mini personal computers, sparking a revolution in ubiquitous computing. The survey could have important implications for school leaders looking to design programs that appeal to their students and younger stakeholders.