Weekly Media Roundup - January 25

Zoo Animals Visit School (News Herald, Ohio)
Afterschool youth at Champions for Children in Port Clinton had some creepy crawly visitors on Monday – a snake, cockroach and a lizard from the Toledo Zoo. The afterschool program is participating in several enrichment programs to make learning more interesting for youth. The Zoo’s Education Manager Josh Minor told the students he would bring a tree frog, lizard, alligator, Guinea pig or a tarantula the next time he visits the program.

Miracle After-School Program Taps Wine Festival to Help Immokalee Students Achieve (Naples Daily News, Florida)
Afterschool students in Immokalee have a wine festival to thank for their program’s funding.  “Without the wine festival we would not be able to get the 21st Century grant that pays for the majority of the program,” Pat Riley, executive director of the Alliance of Educational Leaders, which works to implement the Miracle program in Immokalee, told the Naples Daily News. The 21st Century Community Learning Center has grants for about 80% of its funding, and the Wine Festival’s sponsor – The Naples Children and Education Foundation – supports the rest of the local funding. This will be the fourth year that the Wine Festival donates to the Miracle program at Immokalee’s schools.

$10 Million Tennis Facility to Open in Marshall Heights in September (Washington Post, District of Columbia)
Construction will break ground next week on a new seven-acre tennis facility in Marshall Heights, after a seven-year fundraising campaign by the Washington Tennis & Education Foundation to bring its youth development programs to Southeast D.C. The facility will house the Center for Excellence, an afterschool program for at-risk youth which provides about 60 K-12 students from Northeast and Southeast each year with academic support and tennis training aimed at getting them into college.

SIUE’s STEM Program Brings Academic Subjects Together (The Telegraph, Illinois)
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Center for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Research, Education and Outreach has partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of Bethalto to provide hands-on learning experiences for afterschool students in Alton. Two to three times per month the university’s Minds on Science Activities in the Community Program brings all the materials and supplies to engage afterschool youth in STEM activities, like building a small-scale catapult prototype, investigating the mysteries of owl pellets or snowflake science.