• Genesis Hector, a fifth-grade student at Peachtree City Elementary School, will cover news, entertainment, sports events, and even the 2016 presidential election, in the country's oldest and largest student reporter program. She is one of 27 new Kid Reporters, ages 10-14, selected by the award-winning Scholastic News Kids Press Corps from more than 200 applicants. "I want to be able to speak for kids who may think that they won't be heard because they are not big or important," Genesis said in her application. The only student in Georgia selected to this year's new team of reporters from 22 states and the District of Columbia, Genesis was encouraged to apply by her teachers April Mobley and Sharon Moore. Stories by the Kid Reporters appear in select issues of Scholastic classroom magazines, which are read by more than 25 million students nationwide, and are available online at http://magazines.scholastic.com/kids-press/news/.
• Flat Rock Middle School in Fayette County is one of 51 winners across the nation, and the only one in Georgia, of $10,000 in technology, for teaching each student in the school an hour of computer coding in the "Hour of Code" during National Computer Science Week December 7-13. Code.org, a nonprofit organization founded to advance computer science education, hosts the Hour of Code and gives $10,000 in classroom technology to one school in each participating state. To qualify for the grant, the entire school has to register to participate in the Hour of Code, and complete an application. Sixth-grade math teacher Dr. Tarchell Caruthers spearheaded writing the grant application that won the school the award, which will be used to further Flat Rock's STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) initiatives.
• Woodward Academy seventh-grader Ruby Sloan and her pony, Havens, completed their equestrian season by qualifying for the National Equestrian Indoor Finals competition. Ruby was one of the top 25 medium pony riders in the nation to compete. Ruby finished the year ranked the No. 1 pony rider in the Southeast Zone 4 Region.
• David Kendrick, a teacher at Duluth High School, has been named the 2015 Civil War Trust Teacher of the Year. Every year The Civil War Trust presents a Teacher of the Year Award to someone who has shown passion for the study of the Civil War as well as a commensurate passion for passing on his or her knowledge to younger generations. The recipients are often involved in some form of battlefield preservation.
• Fifth-grade students in Jennifer Bowers' and Carol Evans' talented and gifted classes recently held a Research Contract Fair at Creek View Elementary School in Alpharetta. Each student had been investigating a real-world problem, such as terrorism, cancer, and the energy crisis, since August in a variety of ways. Students wrote a research paper to learn about their topics and how they relate to the fifth-grade curriculum. They completed an interview with a person in the real world who is working to solve the problem and created a visual to summarize their learning. Lastly, they brainstormed ways in which they, as fifth-graders, could help to solve the problem.
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