Girl Up: United Nations Teen Advisor
This summer, Ames High senior Ganna Omar attended the 2019 Girl Up Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. as a United Nations Foundation, Girl Up Teen Advisor. The annual conference hosts “passionate youth advocates from around the world,” in an “enriching, cross-cultural experience that aims to empower, educate, and activate the potential of young changemakers.” Girl Up was founded by the United Nations Foundation in 2010, and continues to work across a global community of partners to achieve gender equality worldwide. Omar has led the Ames High Girl Up chapter for the past year where their work has focused on raising awareness, lobbying elected officials, and fundraising.
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Enrich, Empower, Excel Summer School
Summer programming looked a little different this year but provided many of the great courses that families were accustomed to. Two programs within the district (ELP Super Summer and ALP summer school) and two community partners (YSS and United Way of Story County) joined together to create the Enrich, Empower, Excel summer program. Dr. Anthony Jones, Director of Equity and administrator in charge of the summer program said, “The reasons the programs joined together were to ensure all students have equal access to rich learning opportunities and to enhance the academic enrichment provided to all students.”
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The Ames High Experience
The high school experience is one that lasts with us forever. It is a formidable time in many of our lives where the experiences push us to become who we are. Values become established, personalities take hold, and it is a time when we contemplate our future and what we could become. There is no question that each high school experience is different, but the overall process remains the same: students gather together, they learn, and then they leave and make the world a better place. In Ames, our purpose is to empower every individual to reach their full personal and educational potential.
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Science Olympiad National Competition
To say that Ames has historically dominated the State Science OIympiad would be an understatement. The competition that includes chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, and general science categories, among others, has been won by Ames High 25/26 years and Ames Middle 24/27 years. That includes earlier this year when both teams won the Iowa Science Olympiad State Tournament at the University of Northern Iowa. Both teams beat the closest competitor by nearly 50 points and all but 4-5 of the 23 events in each division finished in the top three. Those wins earned them a trip to Ithaca, New York to the National Science Olympiad Tournament at Cornell University, May 31 to June 1.
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Girls Tennis 2019 State Champions
The Ames High girls tennis team followed up their runner-up state finish from a year ago with a team state championship this season. The Little Cyclones completed their second consecutive undefeated regular season and qualified for the team state tournament for a 13th straight season. Leading up to the team tournament, 4 players participated in the individual state tournament. Arunadee Fernando placed second in singles, Lauren Couves 4th, and the doubles team of Caitlyn Hanulikova and Chloe Wilson finished 6th overall.
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DECA 2019
The DECA International Career Development Conference (ICDC) is the culmination of the DECA year. This year, more than 20,000 high school students, teacher-advisors, business professionals and alumni descended upon Orlando, Florida, for several days of DECA excitement. Ames High sent the largest delegation from the state of Iowa with 44 students. Each of those members qualified to attend based on their performance at the district and state level. DECA is a career and technical student organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. Their industry-validated competitive events allow students to demonstrate career and college ready knowledge and skills at the highest high school level. Students from every state and many other countries including China, Honduras, Pakistan, Japan, and Spain competed at the international conference.
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Passion Clubs at Fellows Elementary
Care. Learn. Lead. At Fellows Elementary, this theme can be seen in the classroom, at assemblies, and in unique initiatives like passion clubs. New to this school year, third to fifth-grade students selected an interest-oriented club that was sponsored by teachers to be a part of. Fellows Principal Brandon Schrauth said, “This year we have been focusing on increasing a sense of belonging amongst our students. Passion clubs were one action we identified to increase belonging and support students in identifying their greatness.”
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2019 State Science & Engineering Fair of Iowa (SSTFI)
On March 28, students from Ames High School and Ames Middle School participated in the 2019 State Science + Technology Fair of Iowa (SSTFI), held at Hilton Coliseum. Open to students across the state, the SSTFI is a way to showcase youth across Iowa and their science research skills. Student groups worked diligently all year on their research, posing an interesting, testable scientific question, design an experiment, analyze results, and creating a poster to present at the SSTFI. At the event, students set up their presentations and have an opportunity to tell their story and defend their research to professionals in the field.
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Industrial Technology Projects
The Ames High industrial technology department offers a variety of classes that consistently produce outstanding projects. The department as a whole provides courses in Woodworking, Metals, Robotics, and CAD. Under the guidance of teachers Michael Scaramellino and Kent Jahn, students have access to a range of materials and equipment, with tool safety being a primary focus for both teachers. Many of the classes are guided through projects, but as students progress in proficiency, they have the ability to self-guide on projects they pick. With CAD software, a laser engraver, plasma cutter, and an arsenal of woodworking equipment, students are consistently churning out amazing projects from wood boxes, cutting boards, coasters, and a variety of amazing scrap metal projects.
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Voice of the Ames High Little Cyclones: Carter White
Meet Carter White, the voice of the Ames High Little Cyclones. New to this winter basketball season, home basketball games were streamed live on YouTube with exciting commentary from Carter. Now a sophomore, his sports commentary aspirations date back to elementary school. As his younger siblings competed at athletic events, Carter would provide play-by-play commentary to himself as a way to stay entertained when he would attend their games. In 8th grade, he job shadowed radio stations in Des Moines and quickly made the decision that this type of career was one he wanted to pursue. “In 7th or 8th grade, I made the determination that I have a natural voice for and talent for this type of career,” said White. This was confirmed when he worked the drive thru at his part-time job at Wendy’s when customers would tell him he had a “good radio voice.”
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