Chalkboard: Area schools participate in Quiz Bowl

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Areawide

SPECIAL QUIZ BOWL: Eight teams from six schools participated recently in the University of Nebraska at Omaha's third annual High School Computer Science Quiz Bowl. They were Bellevue East (two teams), Bellevue West, Millard North, Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson, Omaha Westside (two teams) and York. Winners, in descending order from first place, were Omaha Westside's Robot Ninja Island team of Sam Adams, Brogan Bishop and Mac Mikkelsen under teacher Ryan Stejskal; Bellevue East's Args team of Ryan Brink, Zachary Smith and Roosevelt Boyland III under teacher Derek Babb; and Westside's Robot Pirate Island team of Mathew Weisman, Liam O'Riordan and Jake Quinn under Stejskal.

HOLIDAY FUN: Omaha Westside Student Advisory Board will have a Holiday Fun Festival from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Westside High School. The event is open to families with students in Westside Community Schools. The cost is $6 per student. Registrations are accepted at the door.

BY THE POUND: Omaha Roncalli's Junior Pride Girls Basketball Tournament brought in 586 pounds of nonperishable items for Food Bank for the Heartland.

BOOK CLUB: Elkhorn's Breakfast Book Club had its second meeting this month to discuss Laura Halse Andersen's award-winning "Twisted." Next up: "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls.

Northwest metro

SCIENCE, SILLINESS: Students at Elkhorn Valley View Middle School will have a Science Fair Tuesday in the auxiliary gym. Judging will be from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., followed by an open house and awards presentation at 6 p.m. On Thursday, the school will have an Ugly Sweater-Hot Cocoa Social.

COOKBOOK: The Destination ImagiNation team L.I.F.E. at Elkhorn Middle School is putting together a districtwide cookbook as its project. District families are asked to share recipes through their school office. The team will gather the recipes Wednesday. Cookbooks will be available for purchase after the first of the year.

YOUNG CAROLERS: Blair elementary students will sing next week at locations in the city. Pupils at South Primary will perform Monday at Washington County Bank; North Primary students will be at the bank on Tuesday. Deerfield second-graders will perform Tuesday at Good Shepherd Lutheran Home. Kindergartners and first-graders from Deerfield will sing Wednesday at Washington County Bank. West second-graders will share holiday music Wednesday at Crowell Memorial Home.

Central metro

BIOGRAPHY: Third-graders from Fontenelle Elementary in OPS recently presented the biographies of senior citizens with Alzheimer's as part of a semester-long project organized by the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Service Learning Academy. UNO Thompson Scholars worked with Fontenelle students to create biographies about the lives of residents from the House of Hope Alzheimer's Care facility as part of a "Senior Words of Wisdom" project. Each third-grader presented an oral biography about the resident he or she interviewed for the project. Students framed each printed biography for the participant to keep.

LEARNING AND MOVING: Families at Boyd Elementary in OPS participated Monday in family academics and physical fitness night.

SANTA, BELLS AND HOLLY: Friday brought a lot of holiday clothing to Central Park Elementary in OPS. Students were allowed to wear the seasonal clothing instead of school spirit attire.

West metro

SWEET HELLO: Students at Harvey Oaks Elementary in Millard could send candy cane greetings to classmates, siblings and faculty by paying 25 cents or five box tops. Distribution began Friday.

PLAY 60: Neihardt Elementary in Millard will be introducing Fuel Up to Play 60 to first- through fifth-graders. Fuel Up, a program of the National Football League and the National Dairy Council, asks kids to get at least 60 minutes of activity or play every day and to make healthy food choices. Students' first challenge was to keep track of two straight weeks of activity and healthy eating.

HOLIDAY TRADITION: Second-graders at Reagan Elementary in Millard did gingerbread creations this week in class.

BUILDING A LIBRARY: Teachers Sue Dunning and Kim Reid and their first-graders at Montclair Elementary in Millard collected more than 250 books for children in Mongolia.

GOOD CHEER: Families at Cody Elementary in Millard were welcomed Friday at a doughnut breakfast with musical entertainment.

South central metro

TIME FOR FAMILIES: Karen Western Elementary in Ralston will have Family Night on Tuesday.

COLORFUL GREETING: Students at Meadows Elementary in Ralston could order candy cane greetings to be delivered in school to friends, classmates and teachers or to take home to family members. The sweet messages cost 25 cents each.

IT'S AMAZING: Mockingbird Elementary in Ralston will have an all-school magic show, "Amazing Arthur," on Wednesday.

OFF TO WRAP THEM: The PTO at Seymour Elementary in Ralston gave each student $2 to spend Thursday at Santa's Secret Holiday Shop. The program allows students to buy their own moderately priced gifts for family and friends.

South metro

NOT SO INNOCENT CANDY: This article is from the high school website of Plattsmouth Community School District: "The Nebraska Regional Poison Center would like to make parents and teachers aware of a new Internet trend called 'boozy bears' and 'drunk gummies.' There have been thousands of hits on Internet sites teaching teens how to change this gummy-type candy into a vodka-infused candy. The candy absorbs the alcohol and teens are able to take their bag of 'candy' anywhere. Parents and teachers would find it difficult to detect this type of alcohol use. It would take only a couple of handfuls to raise a teen's blood alcohol to a dangerous level. ... If you have any questions, call the Nebraska Regional Poison Center, 800-222-1222."

THEORY OF ONE: Author Kate Klise visited Pawnee Elementary students in OPS to demonstrate her "One, One, One" principle for creating a story: one character, one problem, one journey. After her presentation, Klise challenged students to write a story, play or movie and present it to someone during the holidays. Klise lives in Norwood, Mo., and is most widely known for writing "The Regarding Series," "The Dying Series" and "Stand Straight, Ella Kate."

PERFORMERS: Members of the fifth-grade choir at Thomas Elementary in Gretna will tour and sing Tuesday.

HAIR-RAISING AND FUNDRAISING: Rumsey Station Elementary in Papillion had a Mustache Challenge that raised $424.20 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation to support cancer research. Six male staff members shaved Nov. 1 and grew out their mustaches until Dec. 1. Students voted on their favorite by placing coins in collection containers. Physical education teacher Joseph Pudenz had the students' favorite mustache.

Iowa

AT WHITE HOUSE: Tristan Carman, a sophomore at Council Bluffs St. Albert, recently attended the White House Holiday Dinner with an invitation from President Barak Obama. Carman worked on the Obama campaign in June 2011 as a volunteer and was hired this fall as a Fall Fellow for Organizing for America Iowa Chapter. As a fellow, Carman schedules special events, such as staffing different Iowa elections; makes phone calls to build and retain support for Obama; and prepares for the Iowa caucuses. Carman is organizing a "Student Day" to encourage younger people to get involved in the campaign and vote. He also is encouraging younger voters to use social media to back candidates and spark political discussions.

LOTS TO LEARN: A-H-S-T will have College Finance Information Night at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the high school cafeteria. Iowa College Access Network will present the free information and answer questions. Attendees will learn about completing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), deadlines, types of financial help available, scholarships, scams and where to go for more help.

ANOTHER DIMENSION: The Council Bluffs Community School District has added a new feature to middle and high school report cards: 21st Century Skills Employability Scores. This report for each class is designed for middle and high school students to understand the level at which they are demonstrating 21st century skills and provide an indicator of student work habits that could help or hinder classroom or workplace performance. The four areas of 21st Century Employability skills and attributes that can affect success in and out of the classroom are participation, work completion, behavior and working with others. Parents and students are encouraged to treat the Employability Scores like academic grades.

Nebraska

ENCORE: Another staging of "A Christmas Story" has been added to Lincoln Southwest's Silver Hawk Theatre calendar. The added show will be at 2 p.m. Saturday.

NEW VENTURE: More than 100 high school students from 14 schools recently competed in the University of Nebraska at Kearney Students in Free Enterprise's New Venture Adventure Day. UNK students coached high school students to develop business proposals that were presented to local business leaders at the end of the day. High school students participated from Amherst, Callaway, Grand Island Central Catholic, Grand Island Northwest, Hastings, Kearney, Kenesaw, Litchfield, Overton, Pleasanton, Sandhills, Sandy Creek, Sumner-Eddyville-Merna and Wilcox-Hildreth. Students were divided into teams to create a retail, service or manufacturing business. They then crafted a mission statement and business card for the company, identified financing requirements met with local finance professionals to obtain the funding, met with mock realtors to negotiate a lease, rationalized their case for an international trade decision involving an ethical dilemma, developed entertaining commercials to promote the business and presented their overall business concept to judges. The "Breaking Barriers" team — Stephanie Duennerman of Amherst, Nick Burr of Kenesaw, Kate Sweley of Litchfield, Kara Dauel of Pleasanton, Alex Johnsey of Sandy Creek (Fairfield) and Lance English of Sumner-Eddyville-Merna (SEM) — was grand champion. Two teams, the Green Sombrero and Smart Cars Classic, were named league winners. Members of the Green Sombrero were Clayton Dana of Amherst, Kaden Ellis of Callaway, Melanie Griess and Rene Lopez of Grand Island Northwest, Taylor Monks of Litchfield, Micki Startk cq with information sent to OWH of Sandy Creek (Fairfield), Nolan Smith of SEM and Stuart Fritz of Wilcox-Hildreth. Smart Cars Classic team members were Mason Lashley of Callaway, Tiffany Weekley and Niclas Moeller of Grand Island Northwest, Josh Lundell of Kearney, Makaleigh Nilson of Kenesaw, Kaitlin Kratzer of Litchfield, Mallary Paitz of Pleasanton, Chantelle Milleson of Sandhills (Dunning) and Chellci Lessig of Overton.

HEALTH AND BULLYING: A student with juvenile arthritis and another with diabetes shared their stories Friday at an all-school assembly at Dawes Middle School in Lincoln. The focus was on anti-bullying as it pertains to health care issues. Additional storytellers, including a student-athlete from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, also participated. Dawes students had an interactive activity relating to numbers of students with health conditions at their school, as well as statistical predictions for development of health conditions throughout the students' life times.

FREE FUN: Key Club members at Lincoln Southwest will offer free fun activities for kids from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday in the commons at the high school. Parents can drop off their kids and return to pick them up.

Compiled by Sue Story Truax

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