Schools

Asa Adams School

ORONO – Asa C. Adams School announced recently a partnership with Target stores in recognition of its efforts to establish a Literacy at Home project as part of the school’s Early Literacy Intervention program for first-graders. The grant money will be used to supply children in the program with reading and writing materials they may use at home, including audio book materials.

Jennifer Weigang, grant recipient and reading teacher, said, “Giving children their own quality books and writing materials is a vital piece in helping young children acquire literacy.”

The grant is part of the ongoing support Target provides to local communities throughout the country. Every week Target gives more than $2 million to strengthen families and communities across the nation. Target funds programs that focus on education, the arts, social services and other vital community partnerships.

John Bapst Memorial High School

BANGOR – A group of students from John Bapst Memorial High School will help collect and test water samples to support the World Water Monitoring Day Project. The project is a worldwide opportunity to impact positively the health of rivers, lakes, estuaries and other bodies of water.

Bapst students will test for four key indicators of water quality: pH, a measure of the acid-alkalinity balance in water; dissolved oxygen; turbidity, or optical clarity, the measure of the amount of suspended sediment water is carrying; and temperature, a critical element for all living things.

Students in the Stream Team, as the John Bapst group is called, met recently with Mark Whiting, a biologist with the Department of Environmental Protection. They discussed the results of data collected during 2003 and 2004 from upstream locations of the Kenduskeag Stream.

John Bapst students have agreed to collect monthly water samples at downstream locations, a project that is expected to contribute to the general knowledge of the sub-watershed and river non-point source pollution – or storm-water runoff – in Maine. The resulting data will be utilized in year-end DEP reports.

The Maine DEP Web site describes storm-water runoff as “water that doesn’t soak into the ground during a rain storm and flows over the surface of the ground until it reaches a stream, lake, estuary or the ocean.”

Furthermore, it explains that, “Many times [storm-water] cannot be traced back to a specific source, rather it often comes from a number of diffuse sources within a watershed – all the land area that drains into one water body. Storm-water runoff often picks up polluting hitchhikers such as soil, fertilizers, pesticides, manure and petroleum products. These pollutants may originate from places like farm fields, driveways, roads, golf courses and lawns located within a watershed.”

Teresa Thornton, a Bapst science instructor and graduate student at the University of Maine, is helping organize the work of the John Bapst Stream Team. Thornton recently commended the John Bapst students for their willingness to lend their time and energy to the worthwhile cause. Coordinators of the project include America’s Clean Water Foundation and the International Water Association.

National sponsors include Georgia Pacific Foundation, Toyota, North America; the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Partners in the project include the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators, EarthForce, the Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement, the Global Environment and Technology Foundation, National Tribal Environmental Council, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Young Water Action Team, among others. For more information on World Water Monitoring Day, visit www.worldwatermonitoringday.com.

Colleges

Johnson & Wales University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Elizabeth Strout of Bangor, who is pursuing an associate degree in advertising communications, has been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at Johnson & Wales University.

She is the daughter of Kathleen and Jeffrey Strout of Bangor and a graduate of Bangor High School.

Husson College and New England School of Communications

BANGOR – Most college students look forward to the annual spring break as a time for relaxing in the sun and re-energizing for the completion of the academic year. Not so for 10 Husson College and New England School of Communications students, who plan to spend one week of the break helping out the not so fortunate.

The students will travel to Washington, D.C., to assist Habitat for Humanity volunteers in constructing a home in a residential area in the nation’s capital.

But in order to carry out their plans for assistance, the students need to raise sufficient funds to take care of their expenses while working on the home. Under the guidance of Fran Tracy, director of student life at Husson, and Rebecca Lindley, coordinator of student life at Husson, the students have planned events such as the sale of Christmas wreaths and candles. They also will contact local businesses for assistance. In addition, the students will chip in $200 apiece of their own money to defray expenses.

The group will leave the week of March 5 for Washington, where they will meet up with other volunteers and be assigned special projects in the construction of the home.

It won’t be all work for the students, however, as they will have the opportunity to visit many of the cultural attractions in and around the city after they finish their daytime tasks.

“It’s also an excellent opportunity for the students to become acquainted with other parts of the country,” said Rebecca Lindley.

The trips to assist Habitat for Humanity started last year at Husson when eight students traveled to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to work on a home construction project.

NESCom students making the trip are Ashley Farina, Therese Faucher and Greg Parker.

Husson students making the trip are Ryan Nickerson, Adam Fleming, Josh King, Meaghan Day, April Clockedile, Kelly Testa and Moremil Clemente.

New England School of Communications

BANGOR – Ten students are scheduled to receive degrees from the New England School of Communications in Bangor at the end of the fall 2005 semester, Dec. 16.

Although there will be no official ceremonies marking the event, each graduating student will have the option of taking part in the regular graduation exercises scheduled for next May.

Receiving a bachelor’s degrees in communications, with a major in TV production, are Justin Beach of Morrill; with a major in TV production, Katherine Foyder of Oakland; with a major in audio engineering, Bret Johnson of Bangor; and with a major in audio engineering, Angelo Simeoni of Peace Dale, R.I.

Students receiving the associate of science degree with a concentration in radio broadcasting are Heather Burleigh of Kingman, Andrew Davis of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and Greta Sproul of Brownville.

Eric LaPlante of Farmingdale, Adam Davis of Old Town, and Brian Spaulding of Mexico will receive the associate’s degree with concentrations in TV production and digital media.