Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 7, 1993 TAG: 9312070272
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Melissa Devaughn
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The project also is unique in that it involves more than just the instruction from BMS art teachers Linda Olin and Lynn Bustle. Community members and Virginia Tech students also have helped.
It all started when art teacher Linda Olin took a summer workshop called ``Art and the Environment'' at Virginia Tech, taught by professor Roberley Bell. Olin was the only community member in the class - all others were students - and felt a bit out of place at first. But by the end of the course, she had the entire class interested in helping out in an ``Art and Environment'' project for her students come fall.
The environmental art project will require an entire year's worth of work involving many areas of study. Clay stones will be made by the art students and placed in the ampitheater as a floor. Art students also will make birdhouses with an emphasis on architecture and create wildlife paintings depicting what they envision when they think of their ampitheater.
Agriscience students will research the types of annuals, perennials, ground covers and shrubs that will best suit the area, then plant them. Social studies classes will research the history of decorative and English gardens and any significance they may have on the BMS garden. Math students will calculate the area of the reclaimed site, the volume of the tree stumps which will serve as planters, and devise a formula that will allow the art students to use the most amount of clay at the least cost.
English students will become involved by writing poetry and short paragraphs stating what they have learned about the project, as well as writing an environmental play to be performed in the ampitheater.
``We're working with everybody to come together to reclaim this land,'' Olin said. ``And hopefully by the end of the year, our art students will be environmentalists.''
Parents have volunteered time, equipment and plant materials to the project. Virginia Tech architecture, landscape architecture and sculpting students have volunteered with the design of the ampitheater. And Bell, who taught the workshop that sparked Olin's idea, also is helping out. An accomplished environmental artist, Bell has helped on five other similar projects in Buffalo, N.Y., where she used to live. She agrees with Olin's vision.
``The thing that is most important is the notion of the environment is physical and that our community is an environment,'' Bell said. ``We're not trying to make all these students artists, so much as environmentally conscious and culturally aware of their surroundings.''
Olin thinks the project is particularly suited to this school year, as Blacksburg Middle School turns 20. What better way to celebrate, she thought, than to honor the school with the outdoor ampitheater. She is hoping when the project is completed, there could be a school reunion at the site with a special dedication ceremony. For now, she and her art students are shooting for an April celebration because Earth Day falls in that month.
So far, the project has received money from the Virginia Commission of the Arts and the school Parent-Teacher Association. Olin and Bustle have applied for yet another grant that will help with other costs involved in the project.
Olin, Bustle and some Virginia Tech landscape architecture students went to Giles County last week to pick up some of the stumps, rocks and other plant materials needed for the project.
``We're excited, the parents are excited and the kids are excited,'' Olin' said. The vision she had is finally taking shape.
Bell, who is currently in New York working on another special project, will visit BMS in the spring to help with the final touches, and is keeping in touch with Olin throughout the project.
``In a community the size of Blacksburg, to have a collaboration between the university and public schools is saying a good thing about that community,'' Bell said. ``We can't turn our backs on our schools.''
Shawsville Elementary School has a busy week in store. The school's SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIRo will continue through Monday Dec. 13 at the school. The fair features the newest titles from more than 70 publishers. Proceeds\ from the sale will help fund school projects and purchase materials for the school. PARENTS NIGHTo will be held Thursday Dec. 9 from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. For further information on these events, call the school at 268-2208.
Also, the school Parent-Teacher Association was recently recognized for increasing membership by 124 percent for the 1992-1993 school year. Classrooms held a membership drive in the fall and the winners of the drive won an ice cream party.
The Parent-Teacher Associations at Falling Branch and Christiansburg elementary schools are sponsoring CASHOLA NIGHT at the Burger King on Main Street in Christiansburg. Burger King will donate 20 percent of its sales for a three-hour period to each school. The Falling Branch Cashola Night is tonight Dec. 7 5-8 p.m., and Christiansburg's will be held Thursday Dec. 9 5-8 p.m.
Christiansburg Elementary School is having a WINTER WONDERLAND SOCIAL in the multipurpose room Thursday Dec. 9 3:30-4:45 p.m. Only Christiansburg Elementary students may attend the party which features a disc jockey, refreshments and pictures.
The LEARNING DISABILITIES PARENT SUPPORT GROUP will show the video, "How Does it Feel to be Different," Thursday Dec. 9 7-8:30 p.m. at the Blacksburg area branch library. The show will help parents and teachers understand how students with learning disabilities feel.
For further information, call 382-5194.
The Gilbert Linkous Elementary School Safety Patrol will hold its annual BREAKFAST WITH SANTAo Saturday Dec. 11 8:30-11 a.m. in the school's multipurpose room. The menu includes, sausage, pancakes, orange juice, milk, coffee or tea.
Families of five or more can eat for $10. The cost for adults is $3, children, $1.75. Also, there will be pictures with Santa and holiday songs.
For further information or to make reservations, call the school at 951-5726.
The Radford High School and Dalton Intermediate School bands will present a HOLIDAY CONCERT Dec. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Preston Auditorium at Radford University. Admission is $1; free for children under 12.
Radford High School chorus and concert choir alumni are invited to join in the singing of ``Hallelujah Chorus'' from Handel's ``Messiah.''
For further information, call Rick Elliott at 639-1068 or 731-3649.
This week's featured high school is SHAWSVILLE HIGH AND MIDDLE SCHOOL. Here's the latest scoop from there:
Senior Emily Garlick received a $25 prize for her winning entry in the Shawnee Cross Country Region C T-shirt contest.
The 1993 Distributive Educational Club of America officers were installed in a ceremony held in Roanoke. They are: Kelly Ryan, president; Missy Johnson and Amy Roberts, vice president; Kelly Fijalkowski, secretary-treasurer; Wendy Gibson, reporter-historian.
Business and Marketing students Ben Basham, Heather Compton, Scott Bandy, Kevin Hall, Mary Raines, Jason Underwood, Brad Helms and Roy Smith attended a Young Entrepreneurs Seminar in Salem to learn about starting a business.
Seventh- and eighth-grade Teen Living students recently earned their baby-sitting certificates, which will help them begin baby-sitting careers.
Sixth-grade language arts teacher Polly Butler applied for and received a Montgomery County STAR Grant for her ``Topple a Giant Reading Program.'' The program is an approach to increasing the Literacy Passport Test reading scores of her students, by reading 50,000 pages as a class. At each 10,000-page milestone students are rewarded to keep the momentum going on the project.
Two biology classes are working in the school greenhouse maintaining and propagating house plants donated by faculty for winter storage. The students have repotted, trimmed and fertilized the plants, so come springtime the faculty will have healthier, happier plants for their home.
Fourth-year Spanish students Christina Dudley, Joy Simmons and Missy Flight started teaching Spanish to the seventh-graders at the school. They visit the seventh-grade classes for 15 minutes a day, Mondays through Thursdays, teaching the students the Spanish alphabet, the names of animals and how to answer basic questions about themselves in Spanish.
Thirteen seventh- and eighth-graders have been trained as peer mediators to help their classmates solve problems arising during the school year. They are: Jeremy Clark, Bobbi Jo Workman, Robbie Trout, Sara Trump, Barnett Carr, April Ratcliff, Meagan Collins, Kristin Underwood, Lori English, Robbie Pannell, Sarah Hagood, Kim Maxwell and Sarah Graham.
The Seventh-Grade Enrichment group at the school participated in World Peace Day Kite Fly this fall. The students worked for more than 30 hours each on the construction and design of their kites and launched the kites on a day when students from all over the world also launched their kites as a symbol for world peace
Local ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS are in the Christmas spirit, collecting food and clothing for the less fortunate.
Gilbert Linkous Elementary School is collecting coats, cans of fruit and cash. The items collected will be donated to the Montgomery County Christmas Store. So far, approximately 100 coats, 300 cans of fruit and more than $800 have been collected.
Elliston-Lafayette Elementary School pupils also are collecting for the needy. Canned food, dried milk and boxed foods will be collected and sent to the Montgomery County Christmas Store.
Several Falling Branch Elementary School pupils placed in the KEEP VIRGINIA GREEN poster contest. Their entries will be entered in the state finals in Richmond. The winners are: Second grade: Meredith Aron, second place; Kimberly Bland, third place. Third grade: Lauren Bishop, Adam Gerald, Joshua Graham and Nikki Shelton, first place; Patrick Cockey, Kinjal Patel, Brian Reed and April Scarafino, second place; Brandon Bland, Matt Donnally, Christopher Goff, Kevin Keith, Crystal Pettry and Shannon Pharis, third place.
Fourth-grade winners were: Matthew Box, Jenna Duncan and Jason Klaiber, first place; Ashley Brown, James Carroll, Roxanne Johnson, Sandra Rashash, Ben Smith and Irvin White, second place; Melissa Aaron, Shawn Hamel, Abby Johnson and Jennifer Perdue, third place.
Pupils at Belview Elementary ``Jumped Their Hearts Out'' last month as part of the American Heart Association's JUMP ROPE FOR HEARTo The 80 children who participated managed to raise $2,500 for the Heart Association.
The first-graders at Belview celebrated Mickey Mouse's 65th birthday (Nov. 18) and wore Mickey Mouse T-shirts, hats and buttons. They even presented Mickey with a birthday ribbon and wrote stories about the lovable Walt Disney character.
by CNB