• Grady High School's G3 Robotics team won the inaugural Georgia Southern Classic FIRST Robotics regional competition against 42 other teams from across the Eastern United States. The team will compete among 600 teams worldwide in the FIRST International Championship in St. Louis, in April.
• Four Clark Atlanta University students are among 291 new University Innovation Fellows designated by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), a program of the National Science Foundation. The students are Ariel Rogers, Damon Willis, Aaron Chambers and Tiffany Mitchell. They were at Google and Stanford University Feb. 20-22 for workshops and exercises focused on topics including movement building, student innovation spaces, design of learning experiences, and new models of change in higher education. David Duncan, director of CAU's Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurial Development, said, "Participating in the University Innovation Fellows program gives us the opportunity to inculcate best practices from some of the top innovators in the world in creating a culture of innovation on our campus. We also will leverage our relationships with Google, Stanford, and other world class organizations as we continue to build our Center to ensure we are a thought leader and a national forum for educating successful, competitive participants in the new economy."
• Two DeKalb County educators have been selected as Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors on NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). April Whitt, an astronomer at Fernbank Science Center, and Susan Oltman, a Kittredge Magnet School teacher, will be aboard several of SOFIA's night-long, high-altitude flights as its 100-inch telescopes makes astronomical observations. They'll shadow SOFIA's astronomers, then take what they learn about astronomy and the scientific process home to their students and colleagues. Whitt said, "I think that being selected for SOFIA says just as much about Fernbank and the number of students and teachers we see there, and about Kittredge and their dynamic learning community, as about me or Susan individually."
• Marietta High School is an Advanced Placement Honor School for the third consecutive year. The Georgia Department of Education also recognized it as an AP Access & Support School for the sixth straight year. Those are schools where 30 percent of AP test takers are African-American or Hispanic and at least 30 percent of students taking AP exams, on which the top score 5, score 3 or higher.
• Fayette County residents may review through March 16 the English/Language Arts textbooks recommended for grades 6-12. They can check out the textbooks on display in the Fayette County Board of Education (210 Stonewall Avenue, Fayetteville) and the LaFayette Educational Center, building "B," (205 LaFayette Avenue, Fayetteville), from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Middle school and high school recommended textbooks are available in the media center of each school. Forms are also available at each viewing site, and comments can also be made online at www.goo.gl/7K92Kj. The school board is expected to vote on the textbooks on March 16.
