Green Acres
Students often learn best with firsthand and hands-on experience. This field trip will take the students into the heart of nature in Northern Ohio along Lake Erie. The trip begins at a family farm with students touring the farm following breakfast. They then will visit Back to the Wild – Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and then The Ohio State University Stone Lab on Gibraltar Island in Lake Erie. Students will eat and sleep at the facility. While there, they will participate in classes on ornithology, herpetology and fish dissection; conduct experiments on Lake Erie during a science cruise and drive an underwater submersible. The trip will also include visits to Crane Creek State Park, one of the best birding areas in the U.S. as well as a stop at the Old Woman Creek Reserve, an estuary in the National Estuarine Research System.
Take A Picture
Improvements in technology have swept the world of photography, with the cost of digital cameras plummeting, making a once luxury item into a commonplace item. This has made for tremendous changes in the photo industry, both in how photos are taken as well as stored and printed. Software now allows the most causal photographer to improve and edit their work, but only a fraction of the photos taken are printed. While technology allows an image to be posted on the internet and seen by anyone around the globe it does not make for an easy way to exhibit or display photos without an outlet or a battery. The Alumni Foundation’s grant will allow the Mosaic School at Heights to purchase a high quality color printer to use for photography classes as well as the Photography Club.
Forensic Science Grant
Ever since O.J. Simpson’s notorious car chase was viewed by millions of people on national television in 1995, America has become increasingly obsessed with forensic science. Whether it is being portrayed in movies, books or countless television programs, the interest in forensic science continues to grow. According to the latest Nielson ratings over 50 million people watched one of the three CSI: Crime Scene Investigation shows on CBS.
Awarded to the R.E.A.L. School, the Forensic Science Grant’s goal is to incorporate forensic science into the curriculum to help capture the interest of students while at the same time addressing he state science standards covered in the Ohio Graduation Test. One of the main goals it to help instill in students the notion that science is not something that starts and stops with the ringing of the school bell. Science is all around them and impacts every aspect of their lives.
Harp Purchase for the IMD
Cleveland Heights High School has a long tradition of excellence in the musical arts. This tradition also has to operate within the modern realities of budget restrictions, and that was just the case when the Instrumental Music Department, (IMD), needed to purchase a new harp. The existing one was no longer playable, nor could it be renovated. Because of the cost of a new harp, it looked as if the IMD would no longer be able to include one. The Alumni Association joined with other funding sources to supply the IMD with the funds necessary to purchase a harp, helping to maintain our musical prowess at Heights High.
Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame Display Case
As the number of inductees into the Cleveland Heights High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame grew over the years, there was less room to acknowledge those who had been inducted. The display cases outside of the auditorium at Heights became increasingly crowded, not to mention that time took its toll by removing a bit of the luster from the exhibit.
In 2000, a new display case was installed in the main lobby at Heights. The three-sided display includes a guide that allows visitors to quickly find an inductee, and has space to accommodate Hall of Fame inductees until 2048. Profiles for all inductees were renovated and placed under Plexiglas. This case allows students and visitors to easily see Heights High successes and receives plenty of viewing from visitors before they attend concerts at Heights.
Black & Gold Pages
In an era when students receive more and more information from numerous electronic mediums, one method still has great demand – books. While students have busy and full schedules, some still find the time to read with others purely for pleasure, and then meet to discuss what they have read. The Foundation’s award to the Black and Gold Pages assists the reading group to expand its membership and the number of books read. The Black and Gold Pages attempts to bring authors in to speak on their works, such as Janette McCarthy Louard, author of Mama’s Girls. Since the Foundation knows that every good meeting needs a nosh, students are able to see what others saw in the fiction they read over a slice of pizza, making sure that everyone has an enjoyable time while broadening their horizons.
Guidance to Go
As Cleveland Heights High School moves forward with the Small Schools Initiative, the need to increase and expand student and parental involvement in the Guidance Department has grown. The Foundation’s grant allows the piloting of Guidance To Go with the R.E.A.L. School at Heights. Staff will meet regularly with students on a variety of topics including decision-making, study skills, time management, etc., with the goal of imparting on students skills that they will be able to use during their time at Heights as well as in their life. After piloting the program in the 2004-2005 school year, the program will be duplicated and applied to all of the Small Schools in the 2005-2006 school year.
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Increasing Potential Of Developing Readers
With money from this grant, a new program titled “iPOD Readers (Increasing Potential Of Developing Readers)” will target below grade readers to participate in a book club that will take place starting in January 2008 and ending in April of the same year.
Each student will receive an iPod for use during the duration of the book club. Each iPod will be equipped with an eBook and related podcasts. A novel and journal will also be supplied for each student. Students will have the opportunity to read the novel while listening to the text on the iPod, listen to related podcasts, create their own podcasts and participate in on-line discussions in order to support comprehension. In addition to downloads specific to the iPod Readers book club, each iPod will have the English Language Arts audio texts downloaded for student use. The iPods will be returned at the end of the book club so that iPod Readers can be replicated each semester.
Tradition!
With only two musicals produced at Heights High in the last fifteen years, the time was right to bring it back in 2007, and what better production than Fiddler on the Roof. With the goal to make a production of this size an annual event, it ultimately included over 200 students including elementary students making this a system-wide event.
Vocal Music Instructor Craig McGaughey worked with elementary music teachers, a choreographer, costume technician, accompanist, eight student musicians, and eight professional musicians to bring the show together. “The music is wonderful and the themes are relevant to teenagers today,” McGaughey said. “Parents and their teenage children have different ideas about happiness and the future. Every teenager can relate to that.”
Tiger TV
While technology has advanced to the point that cell phones that fit in the palm of your hand can capture movies, announcements at Heights High are stilled conveyed the same way they have been for over fifty years, over the PA system. The goal of Tiger TV is to replace an anonymous voice from a loudspeaker with a five-minute daily television morning news show with local and school news, announcements, interviews, features of student interest plus coverage of sporting events and school functions.
Students will participate in every facet of production, from writing and directing to set design, editing and engineering. The Alumni Foundation’s support will cover half of the cost of a mixer/switcher to be used in the cutting and editing of footage. Tiger TV will initially use the cable TV network that exists at Heights for distribution with the desired goal of eventually being broadcast over the school district’s community access channel.
Je Ne Comprends Pas
Research shows that students taking a foreign language have a greater openness towards other cultures and people. With French following English as the most frequently used language in international affairs in an increasingly interconnected world, there is a greater need for bilingualism. The Foundation’s grant allows Heights High French students to serve as teachers to elementary and middle school students which allows the high school students to practice their skills, and increases student interest in learning a foreign language. Financial support from the Foundation covers not only materials, but also transportation and staff costs.
Mosaic Music Studio
Part of the Small Schools initiative is to create five smaller schools within Heights High. One of is the Mosaic Experience. The Mosaic Experience infuses a rigorous course of study with the arts and technology to develop life-long learners who use creative thinking to adapt to a challenging global society. This project is the first step in the creation of a multi-purpose music/project room. The grant helps to purchase of recording studio equipment. The recording studio portion of the music/project room is envisioned as affording students the opportunity to develop the skills needed to record and mix live music as well as re-mix recorded music. The music studio will allow students to build an avocation into a vocation, develop skills in instruments of their choice at the same time learning group interaction skills.
Holocaust Studies
Since the 1970’s, students in the Holocaust studies class at Cleveland Heights High School have participated in many unique and innovative experiences, including trips to concentration camps, cities in Eastern Europe and have participated in a multitude of community activities. Funds from the Alumni Foundation are being used to assist to send approximately fifty students to visit The Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Students enrolled in the Holocaust Studies class will be joined by foreign exchange students as well as students active in the AFS Inter-Cultural Club in touring the center. As a follow up to the trip, students will host a series of dialogues with local Holocaust survivors who will share with the students their personal experiences.
History Alive
All too often history class is viewed as static and merely the memorization of dates and places from the past. History Alive attempts to have students literally walk in the shoes of those from the past. The first step in the process is for students to research and report on the lives of unsung African American heroes. Following a peer review, students then research and create period appropriate attire of their hero. Participants then visit elementary schools, teaching younger students about the historical figures they have researched. Following this, students compose essays on their experiences in presenting to elementary students.
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