Level Playing Field Institute

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E-Newsletter: October 2010 Help a SMASH Scholar Apply for Scholarships! LPFI is seeking 25 volunteers from the community to assist with the SMASH College Scholarship Application Program. Help a hardworking and deserving SMASH junior or senior in their quest to find scholarship money for college. All you need to volunteer is a passion to help students. We will train you how to do the rest! Indicate your interest to Sumaiya at sumaiya@lpfi.org by October 1st. Volunteers will be asked to meet and train with their assigned scholar from 9am-2pm on October 23rd, 2010 at LPFI (543 Howard St.). This session will focus on how to apply for scholarships, with special emphasis placed on developing and drafting an effective scholarship essay. The scholars will have learned how to search for scholarships in a prior workshop. Spend an additional 5-10 hours helping students structure, manage, and edit three college scholarships throughout the year. Please contact Sumaiya at sumaiya@lpfi.org or 415-946-3047 for more information. E-Newsletter: September 2010 In the first physics class of the year, instructor Steve Temple gives SMASH students the assignment to measure the volume of a sphere. He hands them a small rubber ball and directions. One third of the class receives a string and a ruler, the second third is instructed to use pi calculations, and the last group gets water to displace the contents. When the students reconvene to share their findings, they discover that while in the same ballpark, none of the three measurements are exactly the same. Each method has its degree of accuracy, but also a degree of error. “So who gets to measure you?” Steve asks the students. The room is silent as the lesson’s implications register on each student’s face. SMASH Academy has begun. We all know the statistics: high school drop-out rates, under-resourced schools, overtaxed teachers, parents struggling to prioritize making ends meet over spending quality time with their children. While these kids may not necessarily be the ones most “at risk,” they stand at a critical point in their lives where what happens next will radically affect the course of their future – and ours. The SMASH model meets the hunger for learning and provides it space to thrive. Last week, LPFI launched its annual five-week residential program -- a unique combination of the summer-camp experience with its capacity for character-building, and FUN with a rigorous and challenging state of the art STEM curriculum. Sustainable and replicable, the SMASH formula produces immediate and lasting transformations – even in the midst of our nation’s present economic and education crisis. Surrounded by like-minded peers and talented teachers focused exclusively on their success, students begin to see themselves as a community of engaged, dynamic and multi-colored scholars who will become the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians – the ones who will provide the solutions to society’s greatest challenges.

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