Students learn what it takes to run the City of Houston

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Twenty-one seniors from Barbara Jordan High School for Careers were recognized Tuesday, Dec. 9 by the City of Houston for their commitment to job shadowing with more than 10 city departments to get a comprehensive look at what it takes to provide services to residents of the nation’s fourth largest city. Continue reading

HISD employees donate more than $309,000 to Combined Charities

Top contributors saluted for Combined Charities participation

Top contributors saluted for Combined Charities participation

HISD’s Combined Charities Campaign concluded on Oct. 31 this year, and when all of the pledges were tallied, district employees had contributed more than $309,000 to support their favorite causes.

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Day 3: Middle school students connect creatively with Hour of Code

Eighth-graders at Fonville Middle School joined the districtwide coding challenge for the Hour of Code with a tutorial in programming. This is the second year that Fonville students have participated in the international initiative designed to generate awareness about computer programming. [su_vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/114140296″ responsive=”no”]

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HISD student wins grand prize worth $25K in Microsoft’s Bing Summer Story Challenge

Park Place students won big in the national Bing Summer Story Challenge. From left to right are Adrian Pizarro, Johana Contreras Castillo, and grand prize winner Shaun Toliao.

Park Place students won big in the national Bing Summer Story Challenge. From left to right are Adrian Pizarro, Johana Contreras Castillo, and grand prize winner Shaun Toliao.

Third-grader Shaun Toliao will be taking his family to Hawaii, just for writing a story about what he did last summer. The Park Place Elementary School student was the grand prize winner of the Bing in the Classroom Summer Story Challenge, a digital storytelling contest sponsored by Microsoft.

He also won a Surface Pro Tablet and other tech prizes, as well as the opportunity to take classes in digital literacy while in Hawaii. Toliao’s prize is worth a grand total of $25,000. Continue reading

Students explore similarities of medicine, energy, aerospace at Pumps & Pipes

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Forty HISD students experienced what it would be like to be a surgeon and an engineer at  Pumps and Pipes, where thousands of medicine, energy and aerospace professionals and researchers exchanged ideas and explored crossover technologies in each industry.

“The aerospace, energy and medical fields have different techniques, but they basically use the same concepts,” said Energy Institute High School sophomore Shawn Attar.

Students from Energy, Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, Furr High School, Kashmere High School, Lamar High School, M.C. Williams Middle School, and South Early College High School attended the annual event Monday, Dec. 8 at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. The event is organized by ExxonMobil, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, University of Houston, and NASA. Continue reading

Teaching language arts helps one educator publish his first book

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When Mark Dostert was hired as a “children’s attendant” at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center back in 1997, he didn’t realize that meant he would actually be serving as an unarmed guard of the facility’s inmates.

But the seventh-grade English language arts teacher, now in his eleventh year at HISD’s Johnston Middle School, said the year-long experience in Chicago taught him some valuable lessons about working with at-risk youth—and now he is sharing those lessons with other educators. Continue reading

Day 2: Hour of Code teaches students new web programs

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Kindergartners work on coding problems at Briargrove Elementary School on Monday, Dec. 8.

Kindergartners at Briargrove Elementary School collaborated to create an interactive character, coordinating his movements, look and sound for their Hour of Code activity. On Monday, Dec. 8, Cleopatra Jones’ ESL kindergarten class used Scratch, a web programming language tool used to create interactive art, stories and simulations to create an interactive character and build its environment.

More than 100 HISD schools are participating in the Hour of Code as part of Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 8–14. The week-long global initiative encourages students of all ages to learn the basics of coding, engineering, computer programming, and gaming. Continue reading

Westside Lady Wolves bring home the trophy at annual girls’ basketball tournament

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The Westside High School girls’ basketball team racked up multiple victories to finish as the overall champion of the HISD girls’ varsity basketball tournament. Fans were treated to three days of exciting and competitive basketball at the 31st annual tournament, which included 39 games held Dec. 4-6.

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Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School breaks ground for new facility

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Stakeholders for the Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School gathered Saturday at the school’s new site in the Galleria area to break ground on a new 21st century building. The $32 million campus is being built as part of the HISD’s 2012 bond program.

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Middle school students tour TAMU-Galveston, learn about maritime studies

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It was the trip of the year for Woodson Leadership Academy sixth-graders. Nearly 100 youngsters traveled to Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG) to explore the world of marine and maritime studies.

The students split into small groups, and Texas A&M students took them on walking tours of the campus located on Pelican Island, followed by a hands-on lesson about oysters from Wetlands Center and Field Trip Coordinator William Daily. Daily jumped into the water at the Dr. Sammy and Charlotte Ray Oyster Garden and started fishing around for oysters to show eager students, who passed around them around, marveling at tiny creatures attached to the rough shells. Continue reading