WHAT’S NEWS IN MOON TOWNSHIP
MAHS RECEIVES $5,000
GRANT TO START
AQUAPONIC FARM
Moon Area High School was recently
awarded a $5,000 grant from the National
Education Association Foundation to
start an aquaponic farm.
The purpose of the grant is to allow
Invention Lab students to design,
manufacture, and maintain the aqua pond
and then for the Life Skills students to
develop work skills by growing produce
and fish.
The aqua pond will also be available to
the science teachers to develop lessons
for hands-on learning opportunities.
High school teachers James Petrina,
Kate Robson, Sarah Knaus, and Diane
Corsi will oversee the aqua farm initiative.
DISTRICT TEACHERS
REPRESENT MOON
AREA AT NATIONAL
AUTISM CONFERENCE
Moon Area School District teachers
Maureen Archer, Meghan Foust, Katelyn
Schulmeister, and Sarah Knaus had the
opportunity to represent the district at
the 2018 National Autism Conference
held at Penn State University August 6-9.
The National Autism Conference aims
to bring together educators and families
to further cultivate curriculum that best
serves students across the spectrum.
Moon Area School District is one of
the few districts to offer a K-12 Verbal
Behavior program. Verbal Behavior
is a method of teaching that uses the
principles of Applied Behavior Analysis
and focuses on the idea that a meaning
6
724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE
❘
of a word is found in its function. This
initiative was started in the district to
provide research-based programming to
students with disabilities.
The teachers were approached by their
Pennsylvania Training and Technical
Assistance Network consultants to
present on how they collaborate together
to design and implement a K-12 model
using Verbal Behavior techniques and
procedures, especially targeting the
area of manding. Manding focuses on
teaching how to make requests and to
help understand that communication
produces positive results and is driven by
motivation.
“It is a distinguished and rare honor
for our Special Education Department
to be selected as a model K-12 Verbal
Behavior program during this national
conference,” said Michael Haslett,
MASD Director of Pupil Services.
“Our teachers work collaboratively to
ensure that each student has the tools
they need to continue developing their
communication skills from kindergarten
to graduation.”
WESTERN PA
DATA CENTER AND
ALLEGHENY LAND
TRUST COLLABORATE
TO BUILD
REGIONAL TOOL
Allegheny Land Trust and the Western
Pennsylvania Regional Data Center have
just launched Urban Greenprint, an
interactive online regional mapping tool
that will guide urban greening priorities.
Urban Greenprint features a number
of land use data sets from public-sector,
nonprofit and private organizations and
makes them available for public use at
tools.wprdc.org/urban-greenprint.
“The tool is an intersectional analysis
of the status of all Pittsburgh-area land
parcels that is equally accessible to all
organizations and individuals,” ALT
community conservation director Alyson
Fearon said. “It offers opportunities for
public engagement and self-education
icmags.com
that we hope empowers residents
working on land use challenges to take
action in protecting their community
green spaces.”
Users of Urban Greenprint can view
environmental data on a map and interact
with regularly updated information
about properties in Allegheny County. It
is powered by the regional data sharing
infrastructure provided by the WPRDC.
In addition to developing and hosting the
tool, data featured in Urban Greenprint
is also available as open data on the
WPRDC website.
“The convergence of strong economic,
social, cultural and environmental factors
presents the Pittsburgh region with a
transformational land use management
opportunity that is unparalleled in recent
times,” Fearon said. “Local economic
expansion is spurring development in
parts of the city and county, benefiting
many residents while potentially leaving
others behind. Visionary, community-
supported land use decisions will be
needed to best address these issues
and maximize opportunities for all the
region’s residents.”
ALT hopes Urban Greenprint
empowers residents to make their
communities more resilient by
addressing apparent opportunities to
affect community and environmental
issues including recreation opportunity,
neighborhood revitalization, urban
greenspace preservation, urban
gardening/farming, and remediation
of issues like flooding, combined sewer
overflow, landslides and air quality. The
map helps to outline where opportunities
to preserve environmentally sensitive and
important properties are greatest.
Some ways individuals could make
use of this data are by utilizing it to reach
out to individuals whose properties are
suitable for use as green infrastructure,
to identify opportunities to turn
vacant land into community gardens
or other neighborhood assets, or spark
a discussion about risks in developing
flood- or landslide-prone properties.