Surging Momentum

EAST at Douglas MacArthur High School won its first-ever Cornerstone Award this year, and the program did it with first-year facilitator Joshua Miller.

Miller’s fresh energy reinvigorated the program and its students, creating connections with new community partners across the region and state.

“Watching our students thrive and dig deep into their projects was a terrific feeling,” Miller said. “We started live-streaming our sporting events and adopted a news broadcast on our campus. We are working with the Little Rock Zoo to print 3-D biofacts of their animals as well as remapped our local park in Jonesboro. Our students are now ‘EASTized’ and ready to continue making a difference.”

One group of students worked with the Northeast Arkansas Humane Society to create an informational video on animal abuse and what community members should do if people encounter an injured animal.

“One of our EAST teams is working on a map to try to find hotspots within our county where animal abuse often occurs,” said eighthgrade student Desmond Taylor.

The program created a new map for Craighead Forest Park, the most visited park in the area, for the Jonesboro Parks and Recreation department.

“We reached out to the Northeast Arkansas Career and Technical Center and they assisted us by mapping out the entire park with one of their drones,” said ninth-grade student Gerardo Munoz. “It took about 10 hours to map the entire park with the drone, and we are now collaborating with one of our social studies teachers on how to use ArcGIS to create the map.”

Students are also working with Jonesboro’s Department of Sanitation to create a new map for the city’s trash route after a quarter-century of the city using the same one.

“Their goal is to find a way to use fewer trucks so they can be used for other tasks if possible,” said seventh-grade student Madeline King. “We are using ArcGIS to create new, more efficient maps for our city.”

REPRESENTING THE

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR HIGH SCHOOL EAST TEAM:

Tyson Orbison

Copper McDowell

Jackson Mooney

Darius De Lucena

Finn Streider

Suyog Aryal

Thomas Johnson

Patrick Dutton

Zachery Herren

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