Community

By Jim Marcotte

The Inglewood Unified School District Board of Education honored a team of students from Albert F. Monroe Middle School on October 25, 2006. Jaylen Thompson, Tyler Burns, and David Ahaiwe-Dixon are a trio of 7th graders looking to build on the success and experience enjoyed during last year's run in the Christopher Columbus Awards contest. The boys managed to place in the top 30 teams out of 348 applicants under the guidance of Arts and Minds, Inc. Executive Director Audrey Thompson, who initiated interest in the nationwide program after noticing that there hadn't been much participation from the west up until then. Mrs. Thompson hopes to build on this success, spreading interest to more students in more schools in the area.

For ten years now, the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation has teamed up with the National Science Foundation in order to help realize the latent brilliance of what has been deemed the "Innovative Generation"-everyday kids with untapped potential who are creative problem solvers. With the help of an adult coach, students work in teams to identify an issue they care about and use science and technology to develop an innovative solution.

During the last school year the young men met 2-3 times a week after school to develop and improve on their project for the competition. Tyler chose the topic and helped with research and development. Jaylen suggested the idea of a website and drew it up and designed it. David's strength is with words so he did a lot of the writing and he came up with the name: www.bgo.com. That stands for "Be Gone Obesity," which is most certainly one of the more relevant issues to tackle these days. Tyler mentioned that the idea came to him because it affects most of his friends. David pointed out that more kids are overweight since the 80's and 90's and it is leading to a rise in diabetes and heart attacks. Jaylen says that, based on what they learned, Mom's been picking up Subway instead of McD's these days.

"We decided to get a more contemporary way to reaching out to the children and telling them that being obese is not cool," David explained. The students' website proposal features fun yet educational games that teach students about the benefits of healthy eating and exercise. It incorporates aspects of other things in their lives that already attract their time-"like MySpace but with a chat room too," said David, as well as links to related resources.

With the help of Mrs. Thompson, also PTA president at Monroe and proud parent of Jaylen, the boys sought out the necessary elements and resources to aid them in their quest. These included nutrition tips from the LA Trade Technical College California Nutrition Network, website building tactics courtesy of Aoki Rice Companies, and stats from a survey of 60 of their own peers.

"They were able to make the connection between a social concern and a scientific application to solving that concern," Mrs. Thompson said. "That was the important part for me-that they see they can make a positive impact on a community concern using logic and scientific methodology."

This year will be the Christopher Columbus Awards' tenth. Already more than 14,000 students in the US have participated. More than half the entrants have been girls and nearly 25% hailed from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Last year, the winning team from Pottstown, PA developed the idea for a gadget that would be used to scan food labels in grocery stores to alert customers of allergens and undesirable chemicals. Now they're working with members of Congress and the industry to see how to best move the product forward.

The team from Monroe Middle School hopes to outdo itself this year and get some part of the great cache of prizes arranged for the winners. Eight of the 30 semifinalist teams are selected for an all-expense-paid trip to Walt Disney World, where the finalists compete in the Christopher Columbus Awards Championship. The top two national winners receive $20,000 in US Savings Bonds and one team will take home the $25,000 Columbus Foundation Community Grant to help bring its idea to life in the community.

"We are really excited about the opportunity to go after this again and get more students in Inglewood involved," said Audrey Thompson, who has been reaching out to teachers at Monroe and other Inglewood schools in preparation for this year's contest. More information about the Christopher Columbus Awards is available online at www.christophercolumbus

awards.com or by calling 800-291-6020.