Minot Daily News SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2019
Education
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Medicinal Plant chemistry adds options for Minot State students Minot State University science students are at work in the lab. The university has added medicinal plant chemistry option for chemistry majors, partly in response to legalization of medicinal cannabis in North Dakota.
Professor:
MSU’s new option is ‘not a weed degree’
Submitted photos
By ANDREA JOHNSON
Staff Writer • ajohnson@minotdailynews.com
Minot State University is offering a program that might be right up the alley of people who are interested in the state’s fledgling medicinal marijuana industry.
But Chris Heth, a chemistry professor at Minot State, is quick to emphasize that the university’s new medicinal plant chemistry option in its bachelor of arts in chemistry program is “not a weed degree.” “We’re not interested in MSU being Marijuana State University or anything like that,” said Heth, who said it is a rigorous chemistry degree with all of the requirements of the other science de-
gree programs at Minot State. Minot State will begin listing the medicinal plant chemistry option in its course catalogue beginning this fall, but students can already list it as part of their major now. Legalization of medicinal marijuana in North Dakota was “one of the motivations, but not the only, reason for the program at Minot State,” said Heth. He said the university began discus-
sions about the program about a year ago and professors discovered that it was a field where there was potential for growth. A university in Michigan was offering a four-year program in the field at the time but Minot State will be the second university in the country to offer such a program. Because marijuana is still illegal at See MSU — Page 3
Aquaponics camp for girls this summer at DCB
Lots of career options available in aquaponics, hydroculture By ANDREA JOHNSON
Staff Writer * ajohnson@minotdailynews.com
Aquaponics and hydroculture are fields that many people have never heard of, but they offer a wide array of exciting career options, said Amy Koehler, specialty crop instructor at Dakota College at Bottineau. Graduates with a degree in aquaponics from Dakota College might be qualified to work in aquaponics production, commercial greenhouse production, controlled agriculture environment, fisheries, aquatic system and hydroponic careers. Hydroculture is essentially the science of growing plants using mediums other than soil. Aquaponics combines aquaculture, which is raising aquatic animals in tanks, with hydroponics, or cultivating plants in water, in a symbiotic environment. Dakota College at Bottineau is one of the only colleges in the country that offers a degree in aquaponics, said Koehler. The two-year college will be offering a summer camp June 11-13 for girls between the ages of 15 and 18 to give them a chance to explore those career areas. The deadline to apply for the free camp is May 1. Complete details may be found at www.dakotacollege.edu/wh2ocamp. Koehler said the college received a grant from the Agricul-
tural CTE program to offer a camp that is geared toward encouraging people to study in a non-traditional career field. In the past, the college had also offered a program to expose men to the nursing career, since nursing has traditionally been dominated by women, just as hyrdoponics is dominated by men. Koehler said there are many career options in this area, including aquaponics production, commercial greenhouse production, controlled agriculture environment, fisheries, aquatic system and hydroponic careers “(Hydroculture), especially, is growing by leaps and bounds,” said Koehler, but many girls don’t know what it is, much less that there are degrees available in that field. During the camp, tours of Aspen Aquaponics Farm, Audobon National Wildlife Refuge, and Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery will be provided. A series of hands-on activities will allow the students to learn about careers in aquaculture and hy-
Submitted Photos
droculture while providing exposure to these careers, according to Dakota College. Some of the activities include geocaching at Lake Metigoshe State Park, construction of an outdoor aquaponics system, grilling out and special activities with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We are excited to change perceptions and provide exposure to aquaculture and hydroculture careers for females at DCB,” said Koehler in a press release issued by Dakota College. “This opens doors for young women to learn new skills, have fun and potentially open up doors for careers in this area.”
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
Minot Daily News • PROGRESS: Education
Let’s Taco ‘Bout Math at Ramstad Creative math teacher has fun with students and tacos By ANDREA JOHNSON
Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com
Submitted photos
ABOVE: Seventh-graders at Erik Ramstad Middle School line up to receive their taco in a bag reward in March. Teacher Emelia Braun came up with a creative way to boost student performance on math quizzes. LEFT: Seventh-graders at Erik Ramstad Middle School increased their scores on math tests by 9 percent during the fall semester and answered 104,580 problems in their quest to earn an entire taco in a bag during teacher Emelia Braun’s “Let’s Taco ‘Bout Math” challenge.
Mathematics can be both fun and tasty, students in Emelia Braun’s seventh-grade math classes at Erik Ramstad Middle School have learned. Braun set out last semester to improve her students’ performance on math facts and math literacy. Kids took quizzes on factors and multiples, the metric system, on calculating area, perimeter, fractions, decimals, percentages and integers, among other seventh-grade math facts. To boost their interest, she promised that students who met a set goal each week would receive part of a taco in a bag, which was served up on a special day in March. “The average scores increased nine percent over the eight weeks,” said Braun. Thirty-four percent of the students got the entire taco in the bag. Some of the students ended up with just a piece or two of the entire taco, but at least 81 percent of the students reached their goal six or more weeks. The seventh-graders answered a total of 104,580 problems during the “Let’s Taco ‘Bout Math” challenge.
Science skills could pay off in the oil industry Erik Ramstad eighth-graders learn about STEM in the oil field with help from Hess volunteers
Science, technology, education and mathematics subjects are given a lot of emphasis in today’s schools. On March 22, eighth-graders at Erik Ramstad Middle School in Minot had an opportunity to learn how brushing up on their STEM skills could pay off with a career in the oil industry. According to a press release from the Hess Corporation, students in small groups on hands-on activities with the assistance of Hess Corporation volunteers. The students learned about oil field techniques such as well casing, the oil refinement process, and fracturing. “Hands-on demonstrations are great
for our students to see more about career fields that are available in their own backyard,” said Rachelle Lamoureux, Ramstad Middle School eighth-grade teacher. “Thanks to the Hess Corporation for bringing in the demonstrations, volunteers and excitement for North Dakota energy. Hopefully this will broaden the students’ perspectives and open their eyes to options after high school or college.” By the end of the day, more than 200 students had learned about fracturing by Submitted photo using Jell-O and maple syrup, and had learned about perforated well casing with Hess Corporation Process Engineering Advisor Wole Omole works on STEM sponges and straws. activities with eighth-graders at Erik Ramstad Middle School on March 21.
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Minot Daily News • PROGRESS: Education
Minot Public Library By SHYANNE BELZER
offers a wide range of events for all ages
Staff Writer sbelzer@minotdailynews.com Libraries are a place full of endless information. From their vast collection of books and other resources to their computers to the people who are working, there is an abundant amount of ways to find information or something of interest in the shelves. The Minot Public Library has been serving the community since January 1908. With over 111 years of experience, they continue to work hard to provide a space to inspire a love of literature, creativity, and more. The Minot Public Library has librarians for every section. Paulette Nelson is in charge of the Children’s Library, Pam Carswell is the Teen Librarian, and Jessica Mason is the Adult Librarian. One thing that the Minot Public Library has been working to offer more of in recent years is events. They work to offer them for all ages with a variety of activities and themes to have something for everyone. “We are more than books. We have a lot of programs going on,” said Nelson. In the Children’s Library, Nelson says they offer storytimes through May, kids movies, events celebrating different holidays such as Earth Day on April 22, a summer reading program, and much more. The most popular events are often the ones offered for preschoolers alongside the after-school programs. They work to offer not only books for children who attend but play areas, computers, and other things to do to inspire and spark interest. As the year goes on they have many different things planned from their spacethemed summer reading to a space camp, an art camp and a science camp planned. “We’re actually getting a children’s entertainer called Leonardo in and he’s going to kick off the summer reading,” said Nelson. According to Nelson, the main goal of hosting the various events is to start introducing kids to literature and to reading. “Just reading a little bit, and the earlier parents start doing that, it sparks their interests and they start reading a lot earlier than if they didn’t have this ex-
MSU
Continued from Page 1
the federal level, each state that has legalized medicinal or recreational marijuana must have its own industry and is unable to work with other states. “The program was designed to teach students what they need to know to work in areas extracting, purifying, and analyzing things that come from plants,” said Heth. “So that could apply to a number of industries, the pharmaceutical industry being one of them because the analytical skills are the same ones that people working for pharmaceutical companies would use to test drugs to make sure that they are pure before they are packaged and sold, for example. Heth said the brewing industry would be another option for graduates of the program, as the extraction of things from hops fits in with the degree.
Photos by Shyanne Belzer/MDN
TOP LEFT: The Minot Public Library offers a variety of resources to the community including computers, books, records, games, movies, and more. On top of that, each section works to offer events and activities for all ages. CENTER: The Minot Public Library, split into two floors, offers sections for adults, teens, and children where they can go and find age-appropriate sources and books. The children’s library even offers play spaces for children to roam. TOP RIGHT: The Minot Public Library features a wide range of books from fiction to nonfiction to periodicals to history and beyond, offering a little something for everyone on their shelves. posure,” she said. Teens visiting the library also have their own sets of events planned with them in mind. These events include a variety of gaming events, computer and 3D printing opportunities, a variety of crafting events, and others. The most popular events are their gaming events, offered as an after-school event and Saturday event once a month, and their Manga Club where teens do crafts, trivia, and more. Other big hits tend to be their Larger Than Life games and their teen movie events. “We work really hard to make sure events are free, open to teens and anyone is welcome,” said Pam Carswell. “We offer a little something for everybody.” The events the Minot Public Library host for teens are
seen as tremendously important. To make sure they are offering what teens are interested in, they offer meetings to talk with teens to get information on what they want to see and do. “With informal learning, kids can learn what interests them, meet new people from around the city and get a chance to try something new,” said Carswell. For the events hosted for teens, Carswell says they hope to bring in a younger crowd and to make the library a relevant place for them. The many events that the Minot Public Library offers aren’t just for children and teens though. MPL’s Adult Librarian, Jessica Mason, works to bring in a variety of events geared toward adults and their many interests and hobbies. These events include a book
Graduates could also potentially find employment in the botanical and health supplements industries. “Our focus is on the science of the processing of the materials,” Heth said. “We’re not focused on growing of any particular plants. While we may grow some things for use in analysis, our current focus is not on the growing part and it’s not specifically on the medicine part, trying to learn what diseases and conditions various compounds are useful for. We’ll learn something of both of those but the focus is on the middle part. We have someone (who’s) grown the plant and harvested it and ... someone needs to take it and put it into a form that a patient or a consumer will want and use. That’s the part of the process that we’re focusing on.” Heth said it would be too complicated to get permission to grow marijuana on campus, but the university is researching the possibility of growing the closely related
industrialized hemp. The 2018 Farm Bill changes the federal government’s policy regarding growing hemp, which produces similar compounds to marijuana but does not have the psychoactive compound THC. Hops might also make a good analog. Heth said the program will potentially be a good recruiting tool for the university and could attract students from other states who are interested in the major. “The technical skills and the scientific background that they’ll gain while doing this will be useful anywhere,” said Heth. “The science doesn’t change regardless of what the state laws are. It’ll apply wherever.” Medicinal cannabis is also potentially a well paid field. Heth said the starting salary for a technician with this kind of education might run about $70,000 per year in some areas.
club titled “Books and Brew at the Tap Room” every month, game nights where guests can play games provided by the library or bring their own, an adult coloring club, a writer’s workshop and many more. Most events tend to be onsite of the library, though some have specialized locations. One event that takes place off-site is the Tech Ed program that the Minot Public Library offers for seniors. This takes place at the Parker Senior Center on the first Thursday of every month. “If you have a device and you are having issues using it, you can bring it in and we will help you out by showing you everything you want to do. We don’t fix devices but we can help you learn,” said adult librarian Jessica Mason. The adult coloring club, titled Color Me Happy Adult
Coloring Club, happens the third Saturday of each month and is a relaxing activity for any adult to attend. “It’s just a really cool, low key type of activity. Coloring is supposed to be really stress relieving so people can come in and just color. We offer supplies or they can bring their own and just color and have coffee,” Mason said. Mason has also been working on bringing in new events such as the upcoming Cinema Series. This event will provide people a place to see old and new stuff, indie films, foreign films and award winning films while enjoying some popcorn. “I wanted to kind of offer a place for people to see less mainstream, offbeat films in Minot that movie theaters wouldn’t necessarily show,” Mason explained.
The first event featured the film “Neither Wolf nor Dog,” a limited release film. Mason has many special events in the works. One will bring in a guest performer who plays the kora harp, a 21-string lute bridge harp that comes from West Africa. The performer will explain what the harp is and will perform a concert for kids and for adults. Mason is always open to suggestions when it comes to events and activities that the community wants to see. She invites people to share what they are interested and what programs Minot is missing that the Minot Public Library could help pull off. “If anybody has an idea themselves that they want to get started, we have meeting rooms here in the library and you can always DIY it. You don’t have to wait around for the library to come up with something. If you have a cool idea for a program, definitely give us a call and we will see what we can do,” she said. A new thing that the Minot Public Library will soon be introducing is board games for check-out. They have received many board games from donations and are in the process of cataloging and shelving them so that soon people can come in and rent them just like a book. Mason, like Carswell and Nelson, works to offer a variety of events to bring people in and give people a way to get together, meet new people and experience new things. “Part of it is we want to promote the library but another part of it is just wanting to be a community center for people to come and feel like they have something to do and also to just add to the quality of life in the community,” Mason said. “It’s always good to have a little something else going on in your life besides work and going home.” The Minot Public Library keeps a calendar on their site with all upcoming events as well as hosts a “What’s Happening” on their site. Guests can see what is coming up, search for books, learn about the library and more by visiting www.minotlibrary.org. The Minot Public Library is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Fridays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
Minot Daily News • PROGRESS: Education
Real estate is MSU entrepreneurship graduate’s ultimate goal By ANDREA JOHNSON
Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com
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Garrett Weishaar is Minot State’s first entrepreneurship graduate.
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Garrett Weishaar is the first student to graduate from Minot State University with an entrepreneurship degree. “I actually got a marketing and management degree as well,” said Weishaar, a Minot native. “Entrepreneurship was the third degree I got.” Weishaar said the three majors required many of the same classes, but he believes the entrepreneurship program will prove particularly useful. “”Looking at it afterwards, I’m really glad that I did take the entrepreneurship degree and add it to my list of majors,” he said. The program enabled him to take an in depth look at everything that goes into running a business, from the marketing strategy, the legal aspects of starting a business, and pitching his idea to potential investors. “You have kind of a safe area where you can mess up and fail and it doesn’t really affect you financially,” he said, adding that the worst that can happen to a student in this learning phase is a bit of a bad grade. “You can find out what works and what doesn’t work.” According to a press release from Minot State, Weishaar earned his double major in management and marketing in the fall of 2017. As the university was moving toward an entrepreneurship degree, he first became interested in the certificate. Just a couple weeks before graduating with his first two degrees, Minot State finalized the new degree and gave him the opportunity to earn a third. “After Dr. (Tracey) Mays told me about the certificate, I knew it was going to just be a couple extra classes to get that and some of them were overlapping with what I was doing,” he said in the press release. “I got that and then found out I needed just a couple more to get the degree.
Mays said in the press release that she is impressed with Weishaar and believes he will be successful. “Garrett is a phenomenal student. He will make a great leader and entrepreneur,” she said in the press release. “He represents what we are about (at Minot State). He has taken the opportunities Minot State offered such as internships, additional outof-class projects, and learning opportunities and made the most out of them. He was seen, he was heard, and now it’s time for the world to see that he belongs.” Weishaar recalls class projects that Mays assigned that he found particularly valuable. One project called for a group of students to each create their own food delivery business from the ground up. Weishaar’s group’s business was “kind of like an Uber Eats in a way,” said Weishaar. After they put together a website, marketing strategy and legal paperwork, they actually pitched their idea to real investors around Minot. All that would have been needed to actually launch the business was investment dollars. “The second was a marketing strategy for a local franchise owner and I was able to develop a ninemonth marketing strategy for the local Papa John’s owner,” he said in the Minot State press release. “He was opening a store in Dickinson so it really worked out for me to see the whole operation from buying a building, opening a new store, seeing the early financial reports, I got to see it done the right way.” According to the press release, Weishaar comes from a family of entrepreneurs. His parents and grandparents have also come up with new business ideas. Weishaar said he is still deciding whether he wants to remain in Minot or move out of state. His initial goal will probably be to work in the marketing field and then later start his own business. “The big end goal is real estate, owning real estate and renting it out,” Weishaar said.
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Nanobot dreams By ANDREA JOHNSON
Minot fifth-graders create award winning nanobot project for ExploraVision contest LEFT: From left to right, Moira Yarbrough, Emersyn Kopp, Akina Pallera and Zoe Alther with their model of a nanobot.
Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com Fifth-graders Akina Pallera, Emersyn Kopp, Moira Yarbrough and Zoe Alther can imagine a world where nanobots can help stop lung cancer almost as soon as it starts. The team of girls, all of whom are fifth-graders in a one-day a week pull-out program for the gifted at Edison Elementary, are regional finalists in their age category in the ExploraVision 2019 national contest. They are competing against five other teams for the national prize. The top first-place and second-place winners in the contest will win a trip to Washington, D.C. Each of the firstplace winners will receive a $10,000 savings bond; each of the secondplace winners will receive a $5,000 savings bond. The students should find out who won the contest by the end of April or the start of May. Eight teams in the pull out program at Edison had entered the contest. Julie Jaeger, a teacher for the gifted and talented, said the contest requires students to identify a problem that can be solved with technology and what that technology might look like within 20 years. The girls’ idea is the “MAZE Nanobot,” a specialized, tinier than minuscule nanobot that would be implanted into the lungs, detect cells that are abnormal and then zap them with radiation. The name MAZE comes from the first letter of each of their first names. “Each MAZE will have a 360-degree camera, a series of cancer cell sensors placed in multiple locations, and laser radiation blasters which will also be placed in a way they can attack in multiple directions,” the girls wrote. During the initial stage of the project, the students wrote an abstract giving a thumbnail description of their idea. They also wrote a research paper that describes how the current technology works, its history, how it might look in the future, what it will take to make it work and sample web pages. The end result is a paper that would rival many a college freshman’s science research paper. The girls said they were surprised when they found out they were
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Minot Daily News • PROGRESS: Education
BELOW: The website designed by Akina Pallera, Emersyn Kopp, Moira Yarbrough and Zoe Alther for their winning ExploraVision Contest on how nanobots might one day help treat lung cancer almost as soon as it starts. Photos by Andrea Johnson/MDN
among the regional winners. “My face, my mom said, was priceless!” said Moira. “It was really hard because we had to keep it a secret from everyone and so like we would be really excited but we couldn’t tell anyone,” said Akina. “I’m excited because I’m awesome,” said Zoe. The project was the result of months of work that began last fall. Unlike some of the teams they are competing against, the girls attend different elementary schools for four days a week and only had time for one day a week to work on the initial stage of their project. Emersyn is a fifth-grader at Bel Air Elementary; Akina is a fifth-grader at North Plains Elementary at Minot Air Force Base; Zoe is a fifth-grader at Lewis and Clark Elementary; Moira is a fifth-grader at Perkett Elementary. Emersyn said one of the hardest parts was brainstorming the idea and deciding exactly what they wanted to do. One of Akina’s initial suggestions was using dolphins to save people
who are drowning. They put aside that idea in favor of the project using nanotechnology. Jaeger said many other teams that entered the contest also had the idea of using technology to treat or prevent a disease. For Akina, the final idea had some personal associations. “I knew that in my mom’s side of the family, like, there was a thing for second-hand smoking and lung cancer, so I was like, let’s do lung cancer and you see so many ads on the internet about lung cancer and how it affects so many people and then we decided we would have to go more in depth and we decided to do adenocarcinoma because that’s the most common type of lung cancer and that’s where we set off from there,” said Akina. When they learned they had won the regional contest, the students had to do more work to prepare for the national competition, including creating a video. They also created a model of their nanobot, which is much larger than the real thing would be. A nanometer is one-billionth of a
meter. “I saw that if a nanometer was a marble then a meter would be at the whole earth,” said Zoe. Filming the video also required them to give some thought to how they would look as well as how they would sound. They made the nanobot model look like it was flying and filmed themselves talking in front of a green screen. Other students were wearing lab coats in the videos that they made, but one of the girls’ mothers produced a blazer that the girls wore in the video to look more professional. They have also learned about all of the possibilities that might arise from scientific advances, though Zoe is pretty sure that a career in medicine isn’t in the cards. “I don’t want
to be a nurse or doctor because I get disgusted with even blood or something ... it’s like ugh!” said Zoe. Moira said medicine might be a career she would consider. Jaeger said the girls also practiced their language arts and math and science skills as well as their problem solving skills when they worked on the project. Minot Public Schools has had some students receive honorable mentions in the ExploraVision contest, but Jaeger said this team is the first from the district to ever win a regional award. The quality of the projects produced by the students is another indicator that the gifted and talented program is on the right track, said Jaeger.
formed Central Regional Merger brings new Newly Education Association increases opportunities for area schools programming, efficiencies
By ANDREA JOHNSON
Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com Students in the western part of the state will benefit thanks to the recent merger of two regional educational associations, said executive director Luke Schaefer. The Central Regional Education Association incorporates what used to be the Missouri River Educational Cooperative, based in Bismarck, and the Mid-Dakota Educational Cooperative, based in Minot. The merged organizations will serve and provide programming for 49 schools and approximately 40,000 students and 3,000 educators within 17,000 square miles. The merger is a result of years of talks as well as a directive from the 2017 state Legislature and is intended to help the REA better meet the needs of the school districts it serves. The legislature requires that regional education organizations provide professional development assistance to schools, provide schools with assistance in use of technology, assistance with data analysis, assistance with school improvement efforts, and assistance with curriculum enhancement and enrichment. “We can also support schools in other ways they may need support,” said Schaefer. For instance, schools might offer a full day of professional development for teachers from all of the schools served in a particular area, which is more efficient and saves on costs for the school districts involved. The REA also provides training for bus drivers and on healthy cooking and food preparation for cafeteria employees at schools served by the REA. Most schools in the Minot region, particularly rural schools, have lacked access to
Andrea Johnson/MDN
Luke Schaefer is executive director of the newly formed Central Regional Education Association, which is the result of a merger between REAs that were based in Bismarck and Minot. a school nurse. Through the REA, they have access to an e-nursing program connected with ECare, an organization based in South Dakota. A designated school employee at each site is trained to make use of the program and can connect with the e-nursing program if a sick child comes to the nurse. Using the tools provided, a nurse can remotely check the child’s ears, throat or temperature and determine whether the child needs to be referred to a doctor or can be sent back to class. In other cases, the enursing program can provide acute care. For instance, a child who has diabetes might be learning how to manage the condition and can check in with the nurse through the ECare program at regular intervals throughout the day.
“We try to operate without borders as much as possible,” said Schaefer, which means that some schools outside the REA that want to access the service are also able to make arrangements to use the E-Care program. The merger of the two REAs means that it will be easier to extend that service to other schools, as it might be easier to get grants that will enable the REA to expand programming. Another area where students will benefit is increased access to classes that are not available in their districts. Larger school districts like Minot have a large number of career and technical education classes, but those classes have not been as easily accessible to students attending smaller rural schools. Those schools likely have
had a family and consumer science teacher, a business teacher, and a vocational agriculture education teacher, but do not have someone who can
teach aviation or coding. More students will now have access to online career and technical education classes through the merger, said Schaefer. The Bismarckbased REA had a great working relationship with the Bismarck Public Schools. Some classes will be offered in a hybrid format, with much of the content available online and kids coming together for a designated handson learning day in one location where they can practice skills. For instance, one medical careers class recently had a learning day where they practiced their skills using CPR dolls. Schaefer said one instructor told him that the data shows that kids are more likely to graduate and graduate on time if they are able to take career and technical education classes during high school that they find of interest and relevant to their future careers. Some of the smaller school districts in the newly merged REAs will also now be able to offer after school programs. Schaefer said some of those programs have been funded by government grants. They qualify for grant assistance based on the percentage of students in a school who qualify for free and reduced price lunches. Other schools that did not
qualify for the grant funded program have also run their own after-school programs which are managed by the Bismarck-based REA. Some schools that haven’t qualified for the past might now qualify through the REA. Minot has long operated its own Community Learning Center program and will continue to operate its own programs. Schaefer said there is a three-year plan to implement some of the changes via the merger. Some changes will be seen immediately, like the after-school programming or CTE classes. The two organizations had already made some moves toward a merger, such as agreeing to share a director a few years ago and looking at ways they could share services and increase efficiency. With the merger, the organizations now share a governing board with representation from both organizations. Schaefer said one of the benefits of the merger is that there will be two ”very flexible and adept organizations” that will combine to become more so and better serve schools. “What we know is we’re not going to get lots more money, so how can we do more with what we have?” said Schaefer.
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
Minot Daily News • PROGRESS: Education
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Page 7
Minot Daily News • PROGRESS: Education
LEARNING ON THE JOB Minot High seniors learn through internships By ANDREA JOHNSON
Andrea Johnson/MDN
Destiny Aguilar, Mikel Bahl and Kelsee Hoyt, seniors at Minot High School-Magic City Campus, all had unpaid internships last fall and earned high school credit as part of Minot High’s new Minot High School Senior Internship.
Staff Writer ajohnson@#minotdailynews.com Minot High School senior Kelsee Hoyt decided that she would prefer to teach elementary students instead of high school students, while classmate Mikel Bahl is now 100 percent sure that he would like to be a lawyer. Hoyt, Bahl, and their classmate Destiny Aguilar were among 11 seniors who took part in the school’s new Senior Internship Program during the fall semester. “Last year I wanted to be an anesthesiologist, so I job shadowed,” Bahl said. “I almost passed out.” Minot High also offers its students a chance to job shadow professionals for a few hours in a career area that they find interesting. The students said they can do two job shadows each school year. Ben Berg, a business teacher at Magic City Campus and the coordinator for the Senior Internship Program, said the school is encouraging its students to do job shadowing as a way to try out a job. Then, if they want to have
more exposure, they can apply to be an intern for someone who works in that career field. Bahl, having decided that life in an operating theater is not for him, landed an internship at the Pringle and Herigstad Law Firm working with Ryan Sandberg. Prospective interns had to first apply for the program and had to have a good academic record, demonstrate good character, and submit letters of recommendation. They also had to interview at the business where they hoped to intern. The unpaid interns spent 65 onsite hours at their chosen sites. Bahl said he had an opportunity to do research using public information and observed the lawyer make arguments at trial. One day Berg took him to court to observe eviction cases. Bahl said the experience was valuable and gave him a taste of what it would be like to work in the legal profession. He thinks he would like to attend law school,
work in a state’s attorney’s office for a few years to get his feet wet, and eventually work in corporate law. Hoyt, who loves math and would like to become a teacher, has worked with younger children at the elementary level and wanted to compare that experience with teaching at the high school level. She worked with math teachers Zane Alexander at Central Campus and Eric Woodbeck at Magic City Campus. This involved doing a lot of observing and seeing how the teachers prepared for the next day’s lesson. Towards the end of the internship she designed her own lesson plan and taught the lesson to a freshmen class at Central Campus and to seniors at Magic City Campus. She also gained a healthy respect for how much work her high school teachers do. But teaching a high school class is probably not for her, said Hoyt.
“I just felt more comfortable working with little kids,” said Hoyt, who thought about how she wants to feel at the end of a hard day of teaching and thought she would most enjoy an elementary classroom. Destiny Aguilar, who is interested in a real estate career, was an intern at Century 21. She saw a Realtor show a house and saw how much paperwork is involved in a home sale. She also learned that Realtors make their money off commissions and that people who have been in the business longer earn a larger share of the profits. Realtors also try to maintain connections with past clients. Aguilar observed the way a Realtor at the office sent out cards with small gifts on the anniversary of a home purchase to past clients. Perhaps those people will remember the Realtor when it is time to buy or sell their next home. All of the students said the internship was a positive experience
that provided them with more information about careers than they could ever have gained from the classroom. A lawyer told Bahl that even law students don’t get the kind of experience he had during his internship. Berg said the students also spent 10 hours in a job readiness seminar and put together a portfolio reflecting on what they had done and learned during their unpaid internships. At the end of the class, the students had earned 1/2 credit on their high school transcripts. A few of them also had job offers from the businesses where they had interned. Berg said there will be about 20 students in the next Senior Internship Program this fall. High school personnel are lining up potential internships for students at area businesses. Business owners who are interested in working with a student should call Berg at the high school.
New Town first-graders learn about rain forests
By ANDREA JOHNSON children’s books she uses she
Submitted Photos
with information about the Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com rain forest. She also uses an app on an iPad that enNEW TOWN – Kids in ables her students to take a Jennifer Waterman’s first- virtual tour of the rain forgrade class at Edwin Loe est. She drapes fabric from Elementary School in New Town may live thousands the ceiling and has stuffed of miles from a tropical toy monkeys with Velcro rain forest, but they still hands hanging from the felt like they were in the “vines” on the ceiling. There are also tropical tropics last month. Waterman goes all out plants in the classroom. “For three weeks, I teach when she teaches her stumy students about the difdents about science. “I turn my classroom ferent levels of the rain forinto a rain forest,” said Wa- est, where they can find all terman. “I bring in tropical the tropical rain forests in plants and have different the world, how many different types of plants and pictures that I put up.” Students who walk into animals and insects call her classroom on the first the rain forest home, and day have a surprise in how everything in the rain forest depends on each store. “They just walk in and other for survival,” said boom, rain forest!” said Waterman, who first began Waterman, who also plays teaching this unit when the sounds of the rain forest when they are working independently. There are also several
was teaching in Florida. The lesson also helps her students begin to understand how everything is connected. She describes how a colony of ants lives inside a plant and protects the plant from invaders, while the plant also gives the ants the food they need to survive. The first-graders will also learn about the importance of biodiversity and the dangers of deforestation. “They get really fascinated by the fact that 80 percent of the insects around the world live in the rain forest,” said Waterman. “There isn’t one layer of the rain forest that doesn’t have insects on it.” The children will also be assigned to do basic re-
search papers and will be asked to find the answers to four or five questions about one particular plant that they choose to write about. Waterman said she was always fascinated by the rain forest. She saw an example online of how one teacher had transformed her room into a rain forest and knew she could do an even better job. She created a three-week unit that meets all the educational standards for the early elementary level. “It became a big thing at the school I was at in Florida,” she said. Waterman said this is the first year she has taught in New Town. Her 17 firstgraders will now enjoy the same learning opportunities as Waterman’s classes in Florida.
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Minot Daily News • PROGRESS: Education
Saturday, April 13, 2019