EDITORIAL: Kudos to FHS for innovative idea
Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 9 years, 7 months AGO
It’s a long shot, but you have to give credit to Flathead High School for having even a 1 in 70 chance of winning a $10 million grant to bring its idea of a “Community School” to fruition.
Flathead is one of 350 finalists competing for a chance to win one of five awards of $10 million each that will be handed out by the XQ Super School Project.
The project was just launched a few months ago by the XQ Instititute led by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs.
Thanks to English teacher ’Asta Bowen and art teacher Sara Nelson for guiding a team at the school in putting together the application and promoting the “Community School” concept. This is a ton of work, and it’s going to have a big payoff for Kalispell students.
Set to launch in the fall semester, the Community School aims to combine hands-on learning with community service and internships. About 50 students are already enrolled and waiting to be matched with volunteer mentors and internships in their field of interest, including medicine, education, videography, forensics, wildlife biology and more.
With or without the grant, this re-invention of high school could indeed be a $10 million idea.
A dogged fight
Add the refined noses of dogs to the array of tools being used in the preventive war on aquatic invasive species.
A trio of black Labrador retrievers may soon be on the front lines of Montana’s fight to keep invasive mussels out of our waters.
The “mussel dogs” are currently being trained to sniff out the tiny, nearly invisible fragments of boat-borne quagga and zebra mussels that could foul waterways if they’re introduced here.
Through the efforts of the Flathead Basin Commission — assisted by a $70,000 grant from ConocoPhillips — the dogs may be ready for invasive-species duty by Memorial Day.
Two of the dogs would assist at boat-inspection stations at Clearwater Junction and Pablo; the third eventually would travel to Glacier National Park, Browning and Whitefish City Beach.
Given that dogs are used to sniff out drugs, bombs, bodies, truffles and even cancer, it’s not too far-fetched to believe they also could be a first line of defense against aquatic invaders.