Schools

Girls Collaborative Project

ORONO – A statewide conference to kick off Maine-based activities, part of a new national initiative to improve girls’ performance and participation in science, technology, engineering and math, is planned for Oct. 10 at Wells Conference Center at the University of Maine.

The Maine Girls Collaborative Project is part of the new three-year National Girls Collaborative Project. The conference is designed for teachers, business and government leaders, representatives from organizations and anyone with an interest in helping to improve girls’ performance and interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

Sharon Barker, director of the Women’s Resource Center at UM, said the conference will draw people to learn more about the initiatives, meet collaboration partners and find out how to access money to support girls’ opportunities in math and science.

The Maine Girls Collaborative Project will support a statewide network of organizations to encourage girls’ and young women’s participation in courses and programs.

The project is funded largely by the National Science Foundation, and grants will be available to encourage collaboration among Maine programs.

Keynote speaker for the UM conference, Amy Arnett, a scientist at Unity College, was named recently as a Fulbright Scholar. Other speakers include Lyn Mikel Brown, author, activist and professor of education and human development at Colby College; Karen Horton, associate professor of mechanical engineering at UM and coordinator of the university’s computer-assisted design camp; Mary Madden, associate research professor of education at UM; and Tricia Bernhardt, a teacher in Bangor.

More information about the Maine Girls Collaborative Project may be found on the Puget Sound Center Web site, www.pugetsoundcenter.org/ngcp/maine/index.html, or by calling the UMaine Women’s Resource Center at 581-1508.

Northern Maine Water Festival

ORONO – The University of Maine will be host of the Northern Maine Water Festival on Oct. 14. More than 700 fifth- and sixth-grade students from 14 schools will attend.

Students, teachers and chaperones will attend a day of presentations, explore an exhibit hall with water-related activities and watch a stage show by Maine singer-songwriter Matt Loosigian.

Students also will test their water knowledge in the game “Dripial Pursuit,” hosted by area media personalities and Department of Environmental Protection water experts.

Organizers say they need volunteers to help make the festival a success. Depending on their assigned roles and schedules, volunteers will be needed as early as 8 a.m. The festival runs until 2 p.m.

Volunteers may help in many ways:

. In the exhibit hall for part or all day.

. Troubleshooting and set up help for presenters and exhibitors during the 8:15-9:30 a.m. shift.

. Classroom guides all day leading a class around for the day and evaluating sessions.

Breakfast, snacks and lunch will be provided for volunteers, who will receive free T-shirts.

Those interested in volunteering may call Laura Wilson at 581-2971, or e-mail wilson@umext.maine.edu.

Space Week Oct. 4-10

BANGOR – Challenger Learning Center of Maine will observe Space Week Oct. 4-10:

. Screening of “October Sky,” 6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9. $3. Pre-registration is appreciated. The film is about a 1950s mining town called Coalwood, where Homer Hickam is a kid with only one future in sight: to work in the local coal mine as his father did. In October 1957, everything changes when the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, goes into orbit and Homer is inspired to learn how to build rockets. The film is rated PG.

. Get involved in a real rocket competition. The center is forming a team of students in grades seven to 12 to build a rocket and enter the Team America Rocketry Challenge, www.rocketcontesst.org. Adult volunteers are needed. For more information, call Jennifer Therrien at 990-2900, ext. 3.

Other programs at the center include “astronaut life,” Tuesday, Nov. 4; “circuitry,” Tuesday, Dec. 2; and “magnetism,” Tuesday, Jan. 6.

Arts teacher fellowships

The Maine Alliance for Arts Education and the Maine Community Foundation announced the third round of the Maine Arts Teachers Fellowship Program for teachers in kindergarten to 12th grade.

Theater, music, dance, visual art and creative writing teachers have the opportunity to interact with professional artists in their fields.

The Maine Alliance for Arts Education anticipates awarding eight $5,000 fellowships for 2009. Preliminary project proposals are due Nov. 28, after which selected applicants will be invited to apply for a fellowship. Application information for the fellowships and a list of 2007 and 2008 fellows and their projects are available at www.maineartseducation.org.

International Space Station

BANGOR – Richard Garriott, the next civilian to fly into space and son of NASA’s Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott, plans to take up where educator astronaut Barbara Morgan left off.

Garriott will conduct educational activities as a part of his scheduled flight to the International Space Station, slated for October in partnership with the Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

Garriott’s efforts will reach children around the world during recorded-in-orbit activities and live downlinks with students. He has conducted interactive webcasts about his astronaut training in Russia, and recorded podcast interviews with the Challenger Center for students.

Teachers and their students can replicate various activities to demonstrate concepts in physics that Garriott plans to do in space, and share their predictions about what might happen during the same experiment in the weightless environment of space online.

Lessons in support of Garriott’s in orbit activities, plus his archived webcasts, podcasts, blogs and students’ predications submitted by YouTube video, are available at www.challenger.org.

The Challenger Learning Center of Maine is at 30 Venture Way. Since opening its doors in 2003, the center has served thousands of students, teachers, parents, children and the general public with an annual series of programs and activities. Call 990-2900 for more information, or visit www.clcofme.org.

Challenger Learning Center

BANGOR – Challenger Learning Center of Maine in Bangor will continue its first Tuesday home-schooler science workshop for this school year. Classes convene 9-11 a.m. Please note revised schedule:

. “Rocketry,” Oct. 7. Build and launch a rocket powered by water.

. “Astronaut life,” Nov. 4. Learn how astronauts use robotics. Make a robotic arm and use the center’s glove box.

. “Circuitry,” Dec. 2. Design a game using simple circuits.

. “Magnetism,” Jan. 6. Find out how magnets work and how they affect the earth.

. Special event for home-schoolers, Feb. 3. Be a mission controller and an astronaut in the new mission simulation. Appropriate for grades four and up, or grade three with adult.

The cost is $15 per person.

Classes are appropriate for children in grades three through eight and are led by certified teachers. Children in kindergarten through grade two may participate accompanied by an adult.

Pre-registration is encouraged by calling 990-2900, Ext. 3, or visit www.clcofme.org.

Colleges

Page bequest benefiting farm, home museum

ORONO – The University of Maine Page Farm and Home Museum has received a $475,000 bequest from the estate of Henry H. Page, son of Edwin and Vesta Page, for whom the museum is named.

The bequest is an addition to the existing endowment, established in the mid-1990s to help fund the nonprofit museum’s operating expenses, outreach programs and artifact preservation and exhibits, said Director Patty Henner.

“This is an incredibly generous gift that is going to benefit not only the Page Farm and Home Museum, but the school groups that visit it,” Henner said.

Henry Page, a former Hermon and Bangor dairy farmer-turned-businessman and real estate developer, and his wife, Phyllis, were generous supporters of the museum and its programs, according to Henner. Henry and Phyllis’ son, Gerry Page of Jay, is a member of the museum board of directors.

In the early 1990s, when the Maine Center for the Arts was proposed near the museum barn, Henry Page and his wife donated money to help pay to relocate the 175-year-old building, which is the oldest on campus.

The administrative committee overseeing the development of the museum asked the Pages to dedicate the relocated building. They asked that the museum complex – five buildings, an orchard and two gardens – be named in honor of Henry’s father and mother, Edwin and Vesta, according to Henner.

The family has continued to support the museum in many ways, Henner said, and when Phyllis Page died last January, the estate bequeathed the endowment to the University of Maine Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that exists to encourage gifts and bequests nurturing academic achievement, fostering research and elevating intellectual pursuit at UM.

The mission of the Page Farm and Home Museum is to collect, document, preserve, interpret and disseminate knowledge of Maine history relating to farms and farming communities between 1865 and 1940. It offers an educational and cultural experience for the public and a resource for researchers. Visits to the museum and many of its programs are free. Info is on the Web, www.umaine.edu/pagefarm.

Talk on internships, Immigration and Customs

BANGOR – Michael Lana, the resident agent-in-charge of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Investigations ill present information regarding internships with its Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at noon Monday, Oct. 6, Room 218, Peabody Hall, Husson University campus.

The presentation, sponsored by Husson’s criminal justice department, is open to students and others interested in federal law enforcement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for eliminating vulnerabilities in the nation’s border and for economic, transportation and infrastructure security.

It comprises four law enforcement and several support divisions. These divisions form a new investigative approach with new resources to provide investigation, interdiction and security services to the public and law enforcement partners in federal and local sectors.

Husson’s criminal justice program focuses on providing students with a solid background in the law and the meaning of justice.

For information, call assistant professor Cornel Plebani at 945-3457 or e-mail plebanic@husson.edu.