Making music to encourage reading

Lloyd Miller, lead singer and bassist of the Deedle Deedle Dees, a popular East Coast-based educational rock band, will appear next week at L.A. public libraries for four free concerts.

The band encourages kids to read about historical figures such as Cesar Chavez, Satchel Paige and Amelia Earhart. Miller will perform solo at four branches, beginning with the Vernon Branch, 4504 S. Central Ave., at 1:30 p.m. on Monday. Later the same day, he will be at the John Muir Branch, 1005 W. 64th St., at 4 p.m.

On Tuesday, he plays at the Cypress Park Branch, 1150 Cypress Ave., at 2 p.m., and at 4 p.m. at the Lincoln Heights Branch, 2530 Workman St.

The concerts will include songs from the group’s two upcoming albums, one a new collection of American history songs, and the other a compilation of songs about animals and other living things.

-- Mary MacVean

Monique Coleman, families to pack grocery bags

(Volunteer Rita Perez, 38, prepares food boxes at the organization MEND for needy people.)

Actress Monique Coleman of "High School Musical" will join volunteers to pack shopping bags of donated food for people in need, America's Second Harvest organization announced.

The event is at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in the courtyard at Hollywood and Highland in Hollywood. The first 500 children to help will receive a lunch bag designed by Coleman.

The food bags will be distributed at the LA Regional Food Bank, which says the demand for groceries has surged this summer as the economy has sagged.

"This is probably the most people we've ever seen use emergency food assistance," Darren Hoffman, communications director for the 35-year-old Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, recently told The Times.

The organization distributes groceries to about 670,000 people each year through a network of more than 900 religious entities and nonprofits.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Students make film on Holocaust as they learn

(Alexandra Regan, Darren Scortt and John Tipton film in Dachau, Germany, in April 2008 for a Carlsbad High School film.)

Carlsbad High School students are learning about the Holocaust while making a film about it.

Six students leave for Poland and Germany on Saturday to work on the CHSTV film "We Must Remember." Another group recently spent three days filming in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Students also have been interviewing local Holocaust survivors and WWII veterans who helped to liberate concentration camps.

“We want to bring history alive for teens,” said Doug Green, CHSTV advisor. “Presentation of the facts by peers is a powerful teaching tool.”

Quake causes minor damage at some schools

Some school news from today's earthquake:

Three schools east of downtown Los Angeles sustained minor damage: water-main damage at City Terrace Elementary, cracks in the covering of the lunch area at Stevenson Middle School, and superficial cracks in the south building at Belvedere Middle School. School officials also said some ceiling tiles were damaged at Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth. L.A. Unified inspectors were assessing whether any of these indicated a serious problem.

All UCs and Cal State University campuses in the region reported no apparent damage and remained open, with the exception of Cal State Fullerton.

Fullerton closed for the day at 12:30 p.m. after reports of cracks and broken windows in older campus buildings, spokeswoman Paula Selleck said. There does not appear to be structural damage.

The school is in summer session when the fewest number of students are on campus, the spokeswoman said. UC Irvine student Mia McIver was conducting research in the main library when she saw books fly off shelves and land in heaps on the aisles.

Some students dived under the tables, but the earthquake was over before McIver could move. "Luckily, I didn't get hit by any books," said McIver, 30, an English PhD candidate. "They succumbed to gravity quickly and hit the floor."

McIver said she felt scared, like all of her "internal organs were disconnected."

From Howard Blume, Seema Mehta and My-Thuan Tran

A lecture is one thing, but quake provided a reality lesson

Just the place to be on Tuesday when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake shook Southern California: Attending a lecture by UC Riverside professor David Oglesby. The subject? Earthquakes.

 

Oglesby, an associate professor in UCR's department of Earth sciences and an expert on earthquake physics, was explaining earthquake waves when he and 17 students had to take cover under their desks. The lecture resumed following the 25-second quake.

"We were learning about the "P" and "S" waves and the difference between them and their sensations," said Thalia Torres, a second-year student from Pasadena City College. "Then we heard a shaking sound and we all looked at each other and the whole building shook and we ducked down and we asked, 'Is that an earthquake?' My heart was beating so fast, it was really exciting. We were talking about it and the next thing we experienced it. What a great way to learn."

The students were part of the Community College Internship program, sponsored by UCR's Graduate School of Education's Copernicus Project.

The UCR campus did not sustain any damage.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo by Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times

Latino students benefit from strong faculty ties

The results of this study from USC Rossier School of Education fit what you might expect about student-faculty relationships: Latino college students who major in math, sciences and technology do better academically when they have strong relationships with faculty.

The study, "Examining the Academic Success of Latino Students in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Majors," appears in the July-August issue of the Journal of College Student Development. Its authors are associate education professor Darnell Cole and graduate student Araceli Espinoza.

"This shows how important it is for students to perceive they are part of the academic environment, especially for Latino students whose backgrounds may not be represented as equally in faculty numbers," Cole in a statement from USC.

California schools get fruit and vegetable grants

Nutrition is part of the school curriculum, and California is funding some programs to make good eating part of students' lives, too.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today announced grants today for schools to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. Twenty-five grantees, four of them in Los Angeles County, will share $184,100 in Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program grants.

"Under this exciting new program, the grantees will work to find innovative ways to challenge students to eat more fruits and vegetables, like offering the free food through kiosks, vending machines, or bowls of pineapple and strawberries in the classroom." 

Observing and trust in a high school classroom

Antero Garcia, an English teacher at Manual Arts High, writes:

At one point last week, my classroom of 22 students played host to nine adults observing the class. The period before, the number was only six adults as well as a brief observation from our principal. A class later the same day also had six adults.

During the first two weeks of school, a classroom visitor was met with apprehension and curiosity from my students: Why are there adults in the back of the room? What could these adults possibly be writing in notebooks? However, these students have come to expect these outside visitors as they’ve become a daily part of the classroom. After all, on any given day, my classroom will be hosting future classroom teachers from USC, members of LAUSD’s District Intern Program, Williams Compliance officers, members of our school’s iDesign Network Partners, school administrators, and even community representatives investigating the Black Cloud.

(At left, posters put up by a student for the Black Cloud project)

For the most part, these visitors are interested in observing instruction and interaction in the classroom. The observers (though this may sound a bit rude) are pretty much ignored by both the students and me while we’re focused on our lesson. Occasionally, I’ll pull adults from the back of the class into the mix: They may be spontaneously interviewed by the class, asked to participate in a debate or discussion, or even read a paragraph or two from the class’ novel. If a change of pace will help keep students engaged, I’ll gladly use the human assets in the room.

The greenest colleges of them all

The Princeton Review has added “green ratings”  to its popular best-of college guides.

California colleges were squeezed out of the “Green Rating Honor Roll” consisting of 11 colleges -- including Harvard, the University of Oregon and Emory University in Atlanta -- that scored a perfect score of 99 in the Princeton ratings.

But Sonoma State, with 98 points, came very close. And 10 other California campuses scored in the 90s: UC Davis, UC Riverside, Santa Clara University, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Stanislaus, UC Santa Barbara, Claremont McKenna (pictured), Stanford and UC Irvine.

The new ratings are based on information provided by the colleges, covering their avowed commitment to organic and local food; car-pooling and biking; energy efficient certification for new buildings; greenhouse gas reductions; recycling and renewable energy. Points were also awarded to campuses that offer an environmental studies major and that hire a full-time “sustainability” officer.

From the edusphere

Some headlines about education:

Experts question California's algebra edict (Education Week)

Youth sports hit by LAUSD fees (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

Local high school students study different cultures (Pasadena Star-News)

The mayor's moment: Opportunity abounds for school reform effort (Daily Breeze, Torrance)