ROCKVILLE PIKE City schedules hearings on plan. A-4
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Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014
Kensington teacher cooks up science lessons n Recipes help students develop a taste for learning BY
PEGGY MCEWAN
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Rockville mayor urges consideration of open primaries Party chairmen interested in concept, but issue can be ‘fraught with land mines’
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Ann McCallum talks about her recent book “Eat Your Science Homework” holding atomic popcorn balls, a recipe from the text.
Ann McCallum knows a lot about food for thought. The Kensington woman just published her second cookbook for elementary students: “Eat Your Science Homework: Recipes for Inquiring Minds.” An English for Speakers of Other Languages resource teacher at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, McCallum said she got the idea for her first book, “Eat Your Math Homework,” published in 2010, while teaching elementary school. “I was always thinking of ways to get [student] engaged,” she said. “One year we made gingerbread houses and the students had to tell how they used math in their project. It was a humongous mess, but it was so fun, and the kids were really excited.” The idea for math recipe book “just clicked” after that project, she said. After the math book was completed she turned her writing and kitchen talents to science. Cooks, young and old, can learn or reinforce science concepts they already know with recipes like Atomic Popcorn Balls, Black Hole SwallowUps or Invisible Snack Pockets. “The Invisible Snack pockets are my favorite,” McCallum said. “Its a stepping stone into a really interesting science concept.” Henry Solomon Wellcome began selling invisible ink 1869 hoping to become rich and famous. He did not become rich, but did become famous, McCallum said. His ink was actually lemon juice, which disappeared when it dried on paper but reappeared when heated. “I was thinking, if it works on paper why wouldn’t it work on dough,” McCallum said. “So I started experimenting.” After many tries, she came up with a combination of baking soda, sugar and water. It made for a great lesson on acids, bases and neutral liquids, she said, and an interesting way to start a dinner conversation. Each of the book’s six recipes is preceded with a scientific explana-
See SCIENCE, Page A-11
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BY
RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
Fewer than one in five registered voters in Montgomery County voted in June’s primary election, and Rockville’s mayor would like to explore one possibility in an effort to bring more voters to the polls. As part of a larger conversation about increasing voter turnout, Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton thinks perhaps the city could look at urging the county to support open primaries. In an open primary, any registered voter may vote regardless of their party affiliation. Maryland currently holds separate Democratic and Republican primaries. Officials in Rockville’s elections run without any party affiliation, but Newton thinks the city could either urge the county to support a change or support making the issue a legislative priority for the Maryland Municipal League. The move would be an effort to bring people who may feel left out the political process and increase voter turnout for state and county elections, she said Monday.
“We run nonpartisan in the city,” Newton said at an Aug. 11 meeting of the mayor and council. “But then when you couple all of that up on when we’re trying to work forward in this county that is so heavily Democratic, then I think people are feeling very disenfranchised.” Newton said Monday that she’s talked to several Republicans in the county who have told her they sometimes don’t come out for elections because they know the winner is going to be a Democrat. As of the end of July, registered Democrats in Montgomery outnumbered their Republican counterparts 356,817 to 122,007. There were 147,902 unaffiliated voters, who can’t vote in either party’s primary but can vote in nonpartisan races such as school board, in the county. In June’s primary, nearly 24 percent of Democratic voters came out to vote, while about 12 percent of Republicans went to the polls, according to statistics from the Maryland State Board of Elections. Less than 3 percent of unaffiliated voters cast ballots in the primary. Overall turnout in the county was just more than 16 percent. Open primaries are an interesting
See PRIMARIES, Page A-11
Annual festival features wine, food and music n
Uncorked festival is Saturday in Rockville Town Center BY
RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
If you’re the type of person who enjoys food, wine or music, Rockville may have an event for you this weekend. The Uncorked Wine and Music Festival will be held from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday in Rockville Town Center. The festival will include demonstra-
tions by chefs from local restaurants, including Jeff Eng from Clyde’s Tower Oaks Lodge from 1 to 2 p.m., and Brian and Sandy Patterson from L’Academie de Cuisine from 3 to 4 p.m. The demonstrations will be held on Maryland Avenue near Gold’s Gym in Town Center. There also will be music from six bands on two stages, in the town square plaza and at the intersection of Maryland Avenue and Middle Lane.
See FESTIVAL, Page A-11
Maryvale parents continue opposition to proposed storage facility Company tries to ease critics’ fears, says crime won’t be an issue
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BY
RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
Parents at Rockville’s Maryvale Elementary School
continue to express concern about the proposed construction of a storage facility near the school as the project awaits a hearing before the city’s planning commission. The plan to build a 900unit, nearly 110,000-squarefoot ezStorage facility on Taft Street within two blocks of the school has drawn criticism from
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parents of students and some neighbors. Representatives of Siena Corp. of Columbia, which wants to build the facility, gave a presentation at a meeting Tuesday of the East Rockville Civic Association. The project has a public hearing before the Rockville Planning Commission tenta-
tively scheduled for Sept. 10, but that’s not confirmed, said Robert Dalrymple, an attorney for Bethesda law firm Linowes and Blocher who is working on the project for Siena. The facility’s loading area would be gated and fully secured, while the building would feature alarms, closed-circuit television and managers who
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live in an on-site apartment, said Craig Pittinger, a vice president at Siena. Opponents raised concerns about possible criminal activity at the facility, plus potential traffic to and from the building, what types of items might be stored in the facility’s units and possible pollution from demolition of the building that’s now
there. Crime isn’t a problem at storage facilities if they’re properly maintained, Pittinger said. “If you’re going to do those things, you’re going to go to a place that’s not adequately managed,” he said. But Patrick Schoof, who has
See MARYVALE, Page A-11