Daylight Saving Time returns on Sunday, March 12th.
Mary Knapp, Kansas State University Climatologist, said it’s time to apply the phrase Spring Forward, Fall Back.
“Despite the name, we really aren’t saving daylight – we’re essentially switching the time when the daylight occurs,” said Knapp.
Many believe that Benjamin Franklin was the first to champion the idea of “daylight saving”, but according to History, it was actually William Willet who published a brochure with his hypothesis in 1907 entitled The Waste of Daylight.
Contrary to belief, not everyone in the United States participates in Daylight Saving Time. Hawaii and Arizona exclude themselves from the practice as well as the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Approximately 25% of the world’s population participates in Daylight Savings time.
The current application for Daylight Savings became standard with the amendment of the Uniform Time Act in 1966 which became effective in 2007, according to Knapp.
“Since then, in the Spring officially, at 1:59 am the clocks are switched to 3 am instead of 2 am in the second Sunday of March,” said Knapp.
The Geary Community Hospital sponsored “Chase for a Cause” is Saturday, April 22 at 9 a.m.
You can actually pick up a packet on Friday, April 21 at the hospital and race day on the 22 there will also be late registration and packet pick up at GCH.
The 5K walk / run will begin in front of the GCH Surgery Center at 9 a.m. with the kids fun run starting at that same location at 10:15 a.m.
There will be an awards ceremony, door prizes, kid’s entertainment and food in the hospital’s front parking lot.
“Chase for a Cause” is a fundraising 5K walk / run designed to help raise money for various Junction City and Geary County organizations. Twenty dollars of your registration fee will go to the organization of your choice from this year’s approved charities.
There will be cash prizes for the top finishers. They will be awarded to the top three male and female finishers and for the first place male and female masters participants. The top three finishers in each age group will also receive medals.
A proposal for a conditional use permit for Westar Energy to expand the McDowell Creek electrical substation is on hold.
At the request of Rod Moyer, President of Moyer Ranch Inc., the Metropolitan Planning Commission has continued the request until their April meeting to allow negotiations to be completed. “The purported easement for facilities will be contested by the Moyer Ranch,and until the parties resolve this dispute it would be prudent for the Metropolitan Planning Commission to withhold their approval.”
Westar Energy engineer Katie Walbridge explained the need for the expansion, which would cover approximately 1.8 acres. She noted the northern portion of the existing substation includes 115 kilovolt equipment. “Back when we put in that equipment it had a much smaller footprint than updated equipment. So the main driver behind this is we need to update that old lattice structure, we need to put breakers, we need to update that equipment, and to do that we have to expand the sub.”
The expansion would bring the total substation site up to about six acres. One problem is that additional easement access interferes with an area where cattle are moved on the ranch.
MANHATTAN — What would school be like without traditional math and English classes every day? Education experts at Kansas State University say there may be benefits in transitioning from subject-based curriculums to an interdisciplinary approach using community problems.
“‘Subjects’ is an outdated and unnecessary way of thinking about learning,” said Kay Ann Taylor, associate professor of curriculum and instruction and director of curriculum and instruction graduate programs for the university’s College of Education. “An interdisciplinary curriculum is far more enriching, interesting, authentic and applicable for students, while promoting deeper learning and understanding.”
The interdisciplinary model organizes educational lessons by thematic topics rather than traditional subjects, with each subject weaving in as a different lens through which to view the topic. For example, if the topic were a problem in their local community, students would be assessed on how well they addressed the problem through inquiry and learning tasks that could include:
• Statistics — understanding previous statistics and estimating future ones; creating and administering a survey and interpreting the data.
• English — building topical vocabulary and writing correspondence to experts or community stakeholders.
• Public speaking — developing and presenting a talk on their findings.
• Social studies — researching how similar problems were historically handled.
Spencer Clark
In this way, application of each subject is built into learning, along with critical thinking and problem-solving skills, according to Spencer Clark, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction. Clark has worked in several schools that did not use traditional subjects and said the students in those schools did just as well as traditional school students in state testing — and better in many cases.
One potential benefit of the interdisciplinary model is that it could help minimize students negatively identifying with a subject, Clark said.
“We know that no first-grader begins the school year saying, ‘I am bad at math’ or ‘I don’t like social studies because it’s boring,’ but by the end of the year in the subject-based educational model, many students start to think this way,” Clark said. “With interdisciplinary learning, the subjects blend together, and students can see how they are relevant to the topic at hand.”
Despite the potential benefits, the educators concede that if the U.S. were to convert nationwide to the interdisciplinary approach, major changes would have to take place, and it would be a slow process. Clark and Taylor identified some of the possible barriers:
• Resistance from the government, textbook companies and test publishers, as well as parents who are not familiar with the new concept.
• Financial investment to support the transition away from subjects, including costs of pedagogical tools for teachers and students.
• Time and money to develop and implement teacher education programs for instructors to learn the new approach.
• Meeting students’ possible need to have a basic understanding of traditional subject areas before engaging in interdisciplinary, topic-based curriculum.
• Revamping university admissions because the current method is based on the traditional way of articulating courses and grades.
Clark said the switch to interdisciplinary learning has already happened in pockets, starting in higher socio-economic areas. Taylor said similar philosophies of education are currently practiced in many nontraditional institutions, including Sudbury schools, at which K-12 students direct their own learning through their interests; and Waldorf schools, which emphasize the roles of imagination and artistic development; and other charter and private schools.
The approach also made an appearance historically. As early as 1894, a similar idea was used in John Dewey’s Laboratory School at the University of Chicago. Also, the 1916 report “The Social Studies in Secondary Education” suggested interdisciplinary approaches. Clark said these approaches did not have long-term success because of society’s comfort with and perceived value of subject-based curriculums.
Despite societal resistance to subject-free curriculums, Taylor sees only positives in the interdisciplinary approach.
“It’s a model of education that doesn’t isolate learning into discrete, isolated bits of information but instead fosters children’s natural impulses and desires into purposeful, deep learning about interconnectedness in an authentic, experiential approach for understanding,” Taylor said. “When we give our children the freedom to learn, they surpass our wildest expectations.”
Tiffany Roney
K-State News and Communications Services
Division of Communications and Marketing
Richard Myers, KSU President (photo courtesy k-state.edu)
The inauguration of the 14th President of Kansas State University, retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers will be on Friday, April 28th.
Myers, a native of Merriam, Kansas is a 1965 graduate of Kansas State University. Myers earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering before continuing his education and going on to become one of the most decorated Air Force Officials in history.
The inauguration will be at 10:00 am on April 28th in McCain Auditorium.
The American Legion Post 240 in Chapman has been hosting a Wild Game Feed that dates back to the 1970s.
The event, which takes months of planning, often features over 20 different types of meat ranging from beaver, wild turkey, bison, and fish.
There will also be a “mystery meat” sample for attendees to taste and try to guess and if they guess correctly they win a door prize. One year the “mystery meat” was cougar.
The Game Feed is this Saturday, March 11th from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. In order to eat, you must have a ticket – ticket sales begin at 5:00 pm.
There will be raffles, and door prizes. There is no cost to attend, but Goodwill items or a $10 donation are suggested.
Funds collected at the event will go toward youth programs in Chapman.
Fake Patty’s Day has grown to be one of the largest – arguably the largest in Midwest/Great Plains – Saint Patrick’s Day event in the country.
Every year before March 17th – hence the name fake – party goers and college students hit the streets of Manhattan for unlimited drinking opportunities. It is one of the few days where public intoxication is almost tolerated.
Alexander Robinson, Riley County Public Information officer said that months of planning goes into the preparations for the drinking holiday.
“This isn’t something that we just wake up on Saturday morning and say ‘oh shoot, it’s Fake Patty’s Day what are we going to do’; there’s months and months of planning involved in this and it includes bringing in about a dozen outside agencies to help us,” said Robinson. “[Law enforcement] is going to have a pretty heavy presence, and that’s just to make sure that everyone is safe on Fake Patty’s Day.”
Thousands of people will flock to the streets of Manhattan, primarily in and around the Aggieville Business District, and most of them will be intoxicated.
“If someone is just drunk and walking down the street on the sidewalk, that’s not any issue for us – but if they can’t stand and they continually fall down, we’re going to get them hospital and make sure that they get that care that they need,” said Robinson.
Robinson added that most incidents that do occur during the Fake Patty’s celebrations are non-violent and result in few arrests. “If they are inebriated in the street and won’t get out of the street, that’s an arrestable offense because we don’t want them to be injured because they don’t know what’s going on.”
First responders will be on standby throughout the day Saturday.
“Via Christi and our ambulance services at Riley County EMS are [going to be] busy all day long with people who’ve had too much to drink and are entering stages of alcohol poisoning,” said Robinson. Riley County EMS will be station in the City Park “roundhouse” area throughout the day Saturday.
Robinson confirmed that among the dozen outside agencies called to assist this weekend are the Geary County Sheriff’s Department and the Junction City Police Department.
On Thursday, March 9th at 2:21 am the Junction City Fire Department (JCFD) responded to a residential structure fire at 2706 Oakwood Dr.
Firefighters were advised that the fire was at the rear of the structure with a propane bottle on the deck and all occupants were out of the house. The first units on the scene began working the structure fire at the rear of the residence and extinguished the fire in the rear of the structure with a quick fire attack.
The fire spread to the attic area of the structure from the outside deck. Firefighters opened the roof and interior crews opened the ceiling up in the involved area and extinguished fire extension in the attic. Ventilation of the structure was completed to remove smoke.
The cause of the fire has been determined to be accidental, the result of improperly discarded smoking material.
JCFD Chief Terry Johnson confirmed that damage estimates were $75,000 to the contents and structure.
Three years of work has gone into Geary County being awarded the Community Supporting Breastfeeding designation.
Ashley King, Breastfeeding Coalition Co-Chair, said that there were a lot of steps in the process toward earning the designation.
“You have to have so many businesses that allow breastfeeding, you have to have so many employers that have received a designation award and childcare providers; so, it’s been a process to get everybody on the same page and educated,” said King. “We are one of 14 counties in the state that have received the designation.”
The Geary County Breastfeeding Coalition is working to normalize breastfeeding in the community.
“It’s important for people to understand that breastfeeding is normal, so that’s what our goal has been -to make sure that there’s no barriers in our community,” said King.
A Community Supporting Breastfeeding Celebration was held at the C.L. Hoover Opera House on Wednesday, March 8th.
Daylight Saving Time returns on Sunday, March 12th.
