Science

Though it was a very dark, blustery and cold evening, the parking lot and streets around Holy Redeemer School in Montrose were filled with the cars of families and friends attending the school’s science fair. Inside the school, the auditorium was bustling with energy, a myriad of displays and interested people looking, talking, and asking questions of the young scientists. Present in one corner was Nick Nielson who had invented and was demonstrating “The White Hippo.

The Glendale Unified School District is going after a grant of almost $3 million to boost its science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs. The federal grant became available this spring as most states prepare to adopt new federal standards that further emphasize the programs, commonly known as STEM. Worth $2.99 million, the five-year grant would benefit Clark Magnet High School as well as Roosevelt, Rosemont, Toll and Wilson middle schools. As Glendale school officials wait for federal approval to turn in the grant's full application, they have submitted a seven-page pre-application and started considering how millions of dollars could benefit Glendale schools.

Glendale resident John Shirajian, chairman of the science department at Ribét Academy, is proud of the student awards displayed in an unassuming hallway at the college preparatory school in Los Angeles. “The most rewarding thing [about working at Ribét] is getting kids into colleges they want,” Shirajian said. “[Past students] tell me how easy college is.” Since 2001, Ribét has hosted an annual Science and Technology Fair displaying all middle and high school student projects.

Glendale children and others from throughout the area experienced what it might have felt like to discover a dinosaur bone Thursday at the Los Angeles Zoo's annual zooCamp. The zoo's summer camp runs through the end of August, and openings for additional children still are available, zoo spokeswoman Judy Shay said. Classes are given names like "Fantastic Fossils and Dynamite Dinosaurs," "Monkey Business" and "Mad About Science." Children this week dug through sand to find fossils, which they have been painting.

LA CRESCENTA — A science fair to help end the year at Dunsmore Elementary School on Thursday was a celebration of the physical sciences and a culmination of parent participation throughout the year. More than 15 booths showcased hands-on science activities in the school's auditorium — filling the room with exploding pops, electric crackles and tornado-like whirls. More than 150 students were in attendance. One booth featured a scaled-down Tesla coil, where students turned a crank to produce a current of electricity between two metal balls.

Judy Seckler SALEM LUTHERAN SCHOOL -- When the cardboard displays are long gone, Salem Lutheran School students can still bask in the glow of winning honors at the yearly science fair. Third-grade winners were: First place: Allison Overgaard Second place: Thomas Harrison and Ariel Hart Third place: Matt Sanders, Jazmine Persing, and Nestor Luansing Fourth-grade winners were: First place: Rebecca Miller Second place: Andrew Favestveit Third place: Alex Sharp and Daniel Barrios Fifth-grade winners were: First place: Brian Delaney Second place: Stephen Chao Third place: Renee Saito Sixth-grade winners were: First place: Alyssa Ohanian Second place: Domique Navarro and Analiese DiConti Third place: Katie Kotrak, Lauren Styler, Geoff Sanders, Giselle Melik-Jahanian, and Andrew Lim

Gary Moskowitz Rosemont Middle School teacher Carole Gilmer, known for her enthusiastic approach to teaching students about science and technology, died Jan. 3 after a long bout with cancer. She was 56. Gilmer joined the Glendale Unified School District in 1990 and taught eighth-grade science, math and adolescent skills classes at Rosemont for the duration of her service. She took a health leave in May 2001, and returned to school for a short period during the 2002-03 school year, officials said.

Juan Villagomez watched gleefully as a wind-up grasshopper toy hopped and chattered across his desk Thursday morning at Cerritos Elementary School. It was among the materials that instructors from the Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena brought to teach the third-graders about science topics such as energy sources and sound waves. Before unveiling the wind-up toys, one of the museum instructors, Ted Tegart, had showed the students a metal spring, and asked if they thought the spring could be an energy source.

Crescenta Valley High School students were busy shooting baskets on Friday and playing a friendly game of basketball. But it wasn't your typical pick-up game. They played with a robot they designed and built in six weeks for a robotics competition. The robot moved on four wheels and shot the balls out of its "arm," or the cylinder tube that took the place of an arm. Engineering students apply the hands-on approach to learn the principles of engineering that prepare them for future careers in the industry.

The Glendale Unified School District is going after a grant of almost $3 million to boost its science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs. The federal grant became available this spring as most states prepare to adopt new federal standards that further emphasize the programs, commonly known as STEM. Worth $2.99 million, the five-year grant would benefit Clark Magnet High School as well as Roosevelt, Rosemont, Toll and Wilson middle schools. As Glendale school officials wait for federal approval to turn in the grant's full application, they have submitted a seven-page pre-application and started considering how millions of dollars could benefit Glendale schools.

Incarnation School sixth-graders Francesca Legaspi and Krista Celo will be shaking things up next month as they compete in the California State Science Fair with their experiment on the stability of buildings during earthquakes. it's the first time Incarnation School will be represented in the state competition. In their project, Francesca, 11, and Krista, 12, experimented with different methods for creating stability for buildings during earthquakes. In one experiment, the sixth-graders showed how cross-bracing a building using diagonal intersecting structures up and down the walls could help maintain the structure during an earthquake.

The reported Metropolitan Transit Authority payment of $3.7 million to subcontractors including Pasadena-based Wiltec for environmental impact studies on the proposed 710 connector project is a total waste of money if the reports include junk science. What good does it do to have observers report vehicle trips on local roads and freeways only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays when the impact of any 710 connector will be felt 24/7/365? (“Traffic count begins for report on 710 gap,” May 15.)

A five-student team from North Hollywood High School on Monday finished second at theU.S. Department of EnergyNational Science Bowl inWashington, D.C. This is the fourth time that the school has placed second in the competition. The school has qualified for the national tournament 14 of the last 15 years and placed first in 2001, said Walter Zeisel of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which sponsored the regional competition. Continue reading > > -- Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times

One by one, students placed a hand on a silver orb mounted in a corner of the Mountain Avenue Elementary School science fair Friday. And lock by lock, their hair stretched upward and outward until they resembled mad scientists, much to the delight of their classmates. “When you actually do it, you become engaged by it,” said event co-chair and molecular biologist Jackie Bodnar as she watched students interact with the Van de Graaff generator, which creates an electric field strong enough to stand hair on end. It was one of several hands-on stations intermixed with 113 student projects at the event, launched three years ago by parents who wanted to supplement the school's science curriculum.

Last year, 9-year-old Shant Armenian wrote a letter to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) asking the congressman to invite an astronaut to his school. Schiff often receives letters from students, but this one was different, he said. “Shant wrote me a wonderful, moving letter,” he said. “I get a lot of letters from kids on a variety of things. It was clear that he had deep, abiding interest in space and in science, which I can relate to, because I share it.” On Friday, Schiff granted the Altadena student his wish.

Jacqueline K. Barton, a chemistry professor at Caltech, has been awarded the prestigious National Medal of Science, becoming the first woman at the Pasadena campus to receive what is considered the federal government's highest honor to scientists. According to an announcement Tuesday, the White House cited Barton for her discovery of a new property of the DNA helix and her experiments about long-range electron transfers in DNA. She has built electrical sensors capable of detecting DNA mutations and proteins that can distort DNA, experiments that may aid research in such diseases as colon and breast cancer, officials said.

Five Chamlian Armenian School students have advanced to the State Science Fair after earning top honors at the county-level competition, school officials announced. Hagop Margossian, Talar Kassabian, Leona Abrahamian, Mathew Hartounian and Vahe Yacoubian will be among the 900 middle and high school students competing at the 61st annual California State Science Fair, a two-day event which kicks off Monday at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. “It is quite an achievement,” said Lida Gevorkian, science fair coordinator, of the school’s showing.

A Clark Magnet High School science teacher and five of her students have won the top prize and $70,000 in a national competition for their work in measuring ocean contaminants by testing lobster tissue. The Lexus Eco Challenge — designed to encourage teachers and students to integrate classroom learning with real-world applications — was won by science teacher Dominique Evans-Bye and students Yeprem Chavdarian, Edward Kazaryan, Steve Kechichian, Tania Khanlari and Brian Higgins.

Harry Jean Beckman, age 88, beloved husband, father, grandfather and uncle passed away on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at his home in Glendale.  He was a resident of Glendale for 47 years.  Harry was born July 2, 1922 on the family farm in Kirk, Colorado, son of Harry Walter Beckman and Ida Alice Bailey Beckman.  He grew up in Brush, Colorado where he was a high school basketball and track star.  He and his family moved to Pasadena, California in 1940.  He attended Pasadena City College before he joined the Navy.