Weekly Media Roundup: July 29, 2015

High Schoolers Use Their Noodles at Engineering Summer Program (Washington Post, District of Columbia)

Local high school students spent a recent Friday morning putting their engineering skills to work by building bridges with dry spaghetti – and almost immediately destroying them. The teens in the Johns Hopkins University Engineering Innovation summer program were testing how much weight their noodles could support before collapsing. The engineering summer program aims to spark student interest in science by illustrating principles through hands-on projects, program director Karen Borgsmiller told the Washington Post. It’s an opportunity to explore how what they learn in their high school physics class applies to the real world. In addition to the spaghetti bridges, students in the program also build model cars and create traps to capture table-tennis balls.

Bringing Art to ‘Every Child’ (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida)

More than 150 children are spending their summer exploring beat box music, Latin dance, drama, drumming and hip-hop through an eight-week summer program put on by the Association of Florida Teaching Artists. Each day, homeless and underserved students get lessons in music and the arts from local professionals in an attempt to broaden their artistic horizons, build their confidence and keep them learning throughout the summer in a creative, interactive way. On a recent day, kids recorded their own songs using instruments they built from various household items. “This is my passion and my heart,” executive director Mary Kelly told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “Because I feel every child deserves quality art experiences.”

CRUSADing for Kids: Activists Seek Support in Campaign Against Child Poverty (Marin Independent Journal, California)

The Hannah Project’s Freedom School is sparking the imagination of nearly 50 disadvantaged students this summer as they focus on how to alleviate global poverty. The summer enrichment program was created by the Children’s Defense Fund to encourage reading and build leadership skills among low-income youths. “The biggest thing for them is to see somebody who looks like them, who they can relate to, who have experienced the same things they’ve experienced,” Corey Meshack, a paid intern from Midland University in Nebraska, told the Marin Independent Journal. “Once they see that, it opens them up.” The focus on eradicating poverty isn’t just for the kids – the Children’s Defense Fund is also engaging parents in the crusade, encouraging them to reach out to policymakers in support of a number of initiatives that could reduce child poverty in Marin. 

Violence Prevention Plan Aims to Teach Young Boys (Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tennessee)

A new program at the YWCA Knoxville aims to teach middle-school boys how to identify violence and intervene.  GameChangers uses adult male mentors to teach middle school-age boys, primarily from urban areas, about different kinds of domestic violence, when and how to intervene and how to be advocates for women in their communities. YWCA violence prevention project coordinator Hannah Brinson told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that she hopes the program will “give them a positive male role model, someone who can offer them that different perspective of healthy masculinity and what it means to be a man.” The first group of boys is already meeting, and new groups will start next month as part of the YWCA’s afterschool program.