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Last year, the middle school Humanities 7 class established a connection with The Children's Storefront (TCS), a tuition-free independent school which was founded to provide a safe haven and educational opportunities for the children of Harlem. The exchange began when TCS accepted our invitation to participate in "Are Girls Smarter Than Boys?" a unit our students had designed. That exchange continued through videoconferencing and email, including lessons on webpage design and poetry writing. This year's Humanities 7 class has expanded on the collaboration and is using a private wiki as a homebase for the two schools, as well as three new ones. Students have been sharing personal profiles, hopes and dreams for our country, and poetry about their writing team partners.
The Children's Storefront has begun a penny project, with the goal of collecting a million pennies. This was inspired by the stimulus plan proposed by President Barack Obama, and is being used in different ways by different grades in the school to teach about large numbers.
The project has caught the attention of CBS News, who will be visiting The Children's Storefront next week to tape a segment which is planned for a Sunday Evening News report. Although Stoneleigh-Burnham will be away enjoying Spring Break, the story may also include mention of TCS' partnership with our school. While there is no guarantee this will make the final report, it is exciting to have the chance for our school to be mentioned on the national news. Please check your local listings for the CBS Sunday Evening News airtime in your area, and tune in Sunday, March 15th.
Information on the project may be found at http://www.cstorefront.org/pennies/