WHAT’ S NEWS IN PINE-RICHLAND
Natalie Christel
NATALIE CHRISTEL HONORED WITH HIGHEST AWARD IN GIRL SCOUTING
Girl Scouting’ s highest awards— the Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards— are a girl’ s chance to make a lasting difference in the world. For Natalie Christel from Wexford,“ going gold” means earning the highest achievement in Girl Scouting, the Gold Award.
This award, presented to Natalie by Girl Scouts Western Pennsylvania, recognizes girls in grades 9 through 12 who demonstrate extraordinary leadership through sustainable and measurable Take Action projects that address important community needs.
Natalie is a junior at Pine-Richland High School, and a member of the National Honor Society. She also has earned a varsity letter in her first two seasons of track and field. As a Girl Scout member for 11 years, Natalie is an Ambassador of Troop 50442. She was supported in her Gold Award effort by Father Kevin Fazio and other members of the Saint Alphonsus School and Church community. Her Gold Award project began in May of 2016 and was completed in November 2016.
While attending Saint Alphonsus School, Natalie noticed a long white wall that would be perfect for educational messaging. At Pine- Richland High School, she learned a number of artistic techniques through her art classes. Her Gold Award project was to transform the plain wall into a 30-foot mural of seven panels, one for each of the seven Catholic sacraments. The mural is an educational art piece for children of all ages at St. Alphonsus School, as well as for guests attending community and sporting events there.
With Father Fazio’ s direction, Natalie also produced educational materials that could be delivered to students to stimulate and maintain interest in the seven sacraments
mural. She learned how to produce an art piece that also teaches, and plans to continue artistic pursuits in service of education.
The Gold Award is a national award, with national standards, and it represents a Girl Scout’ s time, leadership, creativity and effort contributed to making her community better. Not only do Gold Award projects help communities, they also give girls important leadership skills, teaching them to seek out the work that needs doing in the world.
There are other benefits to going gold as well. Some universities and colleges offer scholarships unique to Gold Award recipients, and girls who enlist in the U. S. Armed Forces may receive advanced rank in recognition of their achievements.
For more information, visit gswpa. org / girls / awards / gold-award /.
MUSIC FOR MS
MuSic for MS, a Pittsburgh-based music festival that benefits those living with MS, will host its fourth annual event at Hartwood Acres on Aug. 12. Over the past three years, $ 132,500 has been raised.
Many local performers will be featured this year including Mark Dignam, Tullycavy, the North Allegheny Fiddlers and Folk Chorale. National band performances will include The Seamus Egan Project( founder of Solas) and Donna the Buffalo. The Master of Ceremonies for the event will once again be Pittsburgh’ s own Michele Michaels from WDVE Radio.
In addition to great music, this familyfriendly event will include some of the region’ s best local food, beverage and merchandise vendors. Doors open at 3 p. m. and musical acts will begin at 4 p. m. All parking for this event is available on site and is free of charge.
MuSic for MS will be held rain or shine and is a general admission event with 100 percent outdoor seating on the Hartwood Acres Amphitheater lawn. Please bring your own chairs and / or blankets. No umbrellas, tents or shelters will be permitted in the main seating area.
For more information, contact Greg Lusty at 724.601.3923.
CADD CONNECTIONS: LOCAL COMPANIES INSPIRE FUTURE ENGINEERS
David Yackuboskey and his students from the Intro to CADD class at Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School( CWNCHS) spent a day touring relevant STEM career locations. The first stop of the STEM tour, Michael Baker International, introduced actual models used in the construction and renovation of roadways— generated using the same computer software students use in the classroom.
Lunchtime found the group at Robert Morris University’ s Department of Engineering. The scale of RMU’ s STEM efforts was exponential next to the CWNC classroom. Students were blown away by the amount of computer-aided machinery available to the engineering students. They recognized that the seemingly simple skills they are developing in class are being honed at universities across the nation and deployed to solve some of our generation’ s most pressing challenges.
The afternoon brought the group to Cadnetics, a full-service production team that leads a project from existing building document through computer-aided design and building information modeling, to 3D visual representations. James Mauler and Travis Johnson of Cadnetics captured students’ attention with a laser scanner rendering of a 3D model of the room they were in. The model was created and could then be manipulated using similar CADD software to that used in the classroom.
The combination of the tour with a passionate teacher and project-based opportunities for the students prepares a new generation for the 21st century jobs we can only imagine.
Read more at stemcareertours. com. n
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