March 22, 2000
Current events competition
Central Grade students participate in online News Bowl
By Garrett Leiva
Herald editor
Fifth-graders in the Talented and Gifted program at Central Grade just completed a nationwide and statewide scholastic contest on-line. The contest is called News Bowl 2000.
Jaye Lynn Trapp's social studies students have been closely following current events for the months of January and February in preparation for this event. The students have been bringing in news articles to share, reading and clipping articles from the local newspaper, discussing the news in class and writing summaries of news stories. News Bowl topics for study are national news, world news, politics, science and technology, arts and entertainment and sports.
On Wednesday, March 15th, Trapp's fifth-graders took a culminating multiple choice News Bowl Game Test on the Internet. Hundreds of thousands of students from all 50 states are taking part in this event.
Once the test is sent off, the score automatically comes back telling you how many you answered correctly. It also sorts you score and ranks you with the other participants. Central students earned 74 points out of a possible 100. "We are very happy with our results," Trapp said. "These questions were very difficult and covered a wide range of topics. The students were impressive in reasoning through the questions."
Participating in News Bowl was highly motivating for students, and current events became something that students looked forward to on a daily basis. To prepare for the on-line test, the fifth-graders were divided into topic experts which really fostered cooperative learning skills. "This has been a great way to get kids actively involved in state, national and world news, and stretching them to become more civic minded," Trapp noted.