• Autrey Mill Middle School in Johns Creek has received a $1,000 grant from Interface, Inc. for a project titled "Magnificent Monarchs at the Mill" in partnership with Autrey Mill Nature Preserve. The nature preserve began a new butterfly garden this summer. With the help of the school's students and teachers, it hopes to attract Monarch and other species of butterflies. That's significant because all pollinators, including butterflies, bees and hummingbirds, have experienced a drastic decline in numbers, and they are important to maintaining our food supply. Autrey Mill Middle School plans to spend the $1,000 purchasing new plants and mulch to improve the soil while expanding the garden with host plants, on which eggs are attached and caterpillars emerge and feed, and nectar plants, on which the adult butterflies, bees and hummingbirds feed from and pollinate. Interface, Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of commercial carpet tile, has been awarding environmental education grants since 1999.
• A team of four students in the Flexible and Professional MBA programs at Georgia State University's J. Mack Robinson College of Business won the recent National Black MBA Association Case Competition sponsored by Chrysler Group LLC. Teams had to analyze and recommend a marketing positioning for Chrysler's new crossover Jeep Renegade. Uchenna (Uche) Agharanya from Dunwoody, Stephen H. Jones from Smyrna, Osereme Osara from Atlanta, and Brandon J. Smith from Conyers bested 28 other teams who had traveled from throughout the U.S. to the competition in Atlanta. Brett Matherne of the Department of Managerial Sciences was their faculty adviser. Agharanya, Jones, Osara and Smith won a $25,000 scholarship awarded to the first-prize team.
• Creek View Elementary's student council sponsored a canned food drive for the school and collected more than 1,900 cans. The students boxed all the cans and carried them out to be loaded in cars for their donation field trip to North Fulton Charities. There, the students were given a tour of the facility, and they learned about the contributions that this organization makes to the community.
• Mountain Park Elementary School teacher Kati Searcy was chosen to attend the launch of the Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center Wednesday and Thursday. Searcy is one of 150 @NASA Twitter followers who planned to tweet the event as a member of the NASA Social Media Team, a program to learn and share information about NASA's missions.
• Fayette County School Superintendent Joseph Barrow and Inman Elementary pre-K teacher Debbie Fannin are among the 56 people who will serve on Governor Nathan Deal's Education Advisory Boards. The four boards are composed of school superintendents, principals, teachers, and school board members from throughout the state. In the past, they have provided feedback on policy issues that included improving the percentage of students reading on grade level by the third grade, and encouraging innovation on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education. The advisory boards are to have their first meeting with the governor Jan. 7 at the Georgia Capitol.
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