The 6th Annual Discovery Night at Fascinate-U Science Museum

The Academically Intellectually Gifted K-2 Discovery Department held its 6th annual Discovery Night of Science at Fascinate-U Children’s Museum on April 25. Nearly 200 second-grade CCS Discovery students and their parents came out for the popular event. This year’s program was an official Duke Energy Science Night site in conjunction with the North Carolina Science Festival. The K-2 Discovery department was the recipient of a Duke Energy Science Night award which included science station materials for up to 200 participants.
This year’s stations included activities such as kinetic sand, binary code bracelets, fingerprinting, creating a coaster, garden in a glove, magnetic racers, making a rainbow, lasers, sink or float and more.  Fascinate-U provided other stations, including  sound cups, flying machines, slime making and bubble bonanza. Another big hit with the kids was the robotic sphero maze!
A highlight of the night was the Campbell University “Phantastic Physics and Chemistry Spectacular” show presented by the Campbell University Chemistry and Physics departments and the Chemistry Club and Astronomical Society. Students were amazed by the science “magic” displayed through the experiments with matter and energy, forces and motion, heat and temperature and light and sound.
In addition, many community resource people came to assist and provide valuable science lessons. Clark Park Nature Center provided an animal artifacts table, and the Fascinate-U educators taught lessons on life science.  Other stations included the City of Fayetteville’s storm water educator, a vermicomposting earthworm table from the Cumberland County Master Gardeners, solar eclipse information and glasses distribution from the Robeson County School’s planetarium. Mascots from PWC and Kidsville News were also seen roaming the museum. PWC also donated water and bags full of take-home goodies for each participant. High School volunteers from Reid Ross, Jack Britt, Terry Sanford, Westover, Gray’s Creek and New Century Middle School were there to assist the second graders at every station. Discovery teachers, AIG teachers, community and high school volunteers and the museum staff all worked together to make this night fun and educational for all participants. Our 2017 Discovery Night of Science was one of our best Science Nights yet!

NC Governor’s School 2017 -The Cumberland County AIG Program is pleased to announce the students selected to attend the 2017 session of the North Carolina Governor’s School.

Samantha Gephart – Art – Terry Sanford High School
Jaelyn Wilson – Choral Music (Soprano II) – Massey Hill Classical High School
Portia Washington – English – Pine Forest High School
Hahn Lheem – Instrumental Music (Cello) – Jack Britt High School
David Li – Instrumental Music (Violin) – Terry Sanford High School
Daniel Soliman – Math- Pine Forest High School
Nicole Delmolino – Math – Terry Sanford High School
Nikhil Gordon – Math – Terry Sanford High School
Rebecca Black – Math – Terry Sanford High School
Shen Chung – Math – Reid Ross Classical High School
Andrew Esterly – Natural Science – Gray’s Creek High School
Brianna Chan – Natural Science – Jack Britt High School
Catherine Walwer – Natural Science – Douglas Byrd High School
Kelly He – Natural Science – Jack Britt High School
Selena Beal – Natural Science – Terry Sanford High School
Arington Duffer – Social Science – Pine Forest High School
Ellin Heidgerken – Social Science – Pine Forest High School
Janasia Miller – Social Science – E. E. Smith High School
Mary E. Vorder Bruegge – Spanish – Massey Hill Classical High School
The Governor’s School of North Carolina is a five and one-half week summer residential program for academically or intellectually gifted high school students, integrating academic disciplines, the arts, and unique courses on each of two campuses. The Governor’s School is the oldest statewide summer residential program for academically or intellectually gifted high school students in the nation. Congratulations to these students for this exceptional accolade.

Breakout Activity
James Galway said, “The quickest way to unlock your talent is to take the flute out of the box.”  AIG elementary students at Ben Martin, Cliffdale and Morganton Road may not be unlocking their musical talents, but they are using their creative “out of the box” thinking.  Recently these students participated in a Breakout Activity.   Breakout Edu is an innovative way to let students use their critical thinking skills and practice their standards while collaborating and communicating to obtain solutions.  Working in teams, students open a variety of locks by determining numbers, words, or directions.   They solve math problems, read clues for details and utilize inferential skills to find these solutions to “unlock” the boxes.  Student feedback for repeating this type of activity was a 100% “Yes”.

National Honor Society
The National Honor Society students from Pine Forest High School recently made and delivered Valentine goodie bags to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department.  Sheriff Ennis Wright accepted the goodie bags on behalf of the entire sheriff’s department and shared a few insightful words with the group.  The entire National Honor Society at Pine Forest High School appreciates the service and sacrifice that each officer with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department makes on a daily basis.

Academic Achievement and Community Service
Students from Stedman Elementary School’s Junior Beta Club show an act of kindness in their community on February 6, 2017, by traveling to Stedman Primary School and “Buddy Reading” with kindergarten and 1st grade students.  The Junior Beta Club members are 5th grade students who have a consistent academic record and are committed to conducting themselves in an ethical and moral manner.  They reflect credit upon their school and community and they maintain a creditable scholastic record.  They are seen as mentors in the eyes of younger students. Way to go Stedman Elementary Junior Beta Club!

AIG Introduces New Logo

Introducing the new logo for the Academically/Intellectually Gifted Program, courtesy of Laut Design in Raleigh, NC.  A huge thank you is extended to Karen Laut Widman, VP of Graphics and Branding and former CCS student, and her team at Laut Design for the new logo.

ACADEMICALLY/INTELLECTUALLY GIFTED TEACHER OF THE YEAR 2016-2017

Kelly Griffin, Cumberland County School’s Academically/Intellectually Gifted (AIG) Teacher of the Year for 2016-2017 engages minds, encourages risk, supports struggle, cultivates wonder, and shares everything, enthusiastically. Close your eyes for a moment and think about this, “When was the last time you did something for the very first time?” For Kelly Griffin’s students, the answer to this question is TODAY, every day.

Kelly Griffin has spent the last 13 years of her career in gifted education. She currently serves as an AIG Teacher/Consultant at Gray’s Creek Middle School for students in grades 6-8. She works with 190 identified AIG students weekly. Kelly believes in learning and creating ideas with others, which she does regularly with colleagues, administration, and other AIG Teachers across the county.  She is a leader in innovative curriculum, spending countless hours preparing lessons and activities that are rigorous, relevant and unforgettable for her students. She feels that “an innovative classroom structure produces innovative learners”.

Kelly will now go on to compete for the 2017 NCAGT Outstanding Teacher of the Gifted. She will be recognized at the 43^rdannual North Carolina Association for Gifted and Talented Conference in March 2017, in Winston-Salem as Cumberland County School’s AIG Teacher of the Year.

Mission

The Cumberland County School system is committed to the academic success of all students. Its mission states that all schools will be safe and caring and that student achievement will continually increase with no differences among subgroups.

In keeping with the mission of Cumberland County Schools, the Board of Education adopts the following North Carolina definition of giftedness:

Academically or intellectually gifted students perform or show the potential to perform at substantially high levels of accomplishment when compared with others or their age, experience, or environment; academically or intellectually gifted students exhibit high performance capability in intellectual areas, specific academic fields, or in both intellectual areas and specific academic fields. Academically or intellectually gifted students require differentiated services beyond those ordinarily provided by the regular education program. Outstanding abilities are present in students from all cultural groups, across all economic strata and in all areas of human endeavor.

Cumberland County Schools is dedicated to providing gifted and potentially gifted students the opportunity to become independent learners and decision makers who recognize their potential and responsibilities in a changing global society. The school system is committed to providing a rigorous and innovative instructional program that fosters the highest level of excellence and recognizes the right of each student to receive intellectual challenge appropriate for his/her capabilities.

The school system believes that within the general population of students, there exists a group of students who have some or all of the following characteristics:

• Form a diverse group and therefore, must be identified using a variety of gifted performance indicators.
• Have the potential to learn at a faster rate in their areas of giftedness and share the ability to think with more complexity and abstraction than other children of their same age, experience, and environment, and, therefore, require differentiated curriculum and instruction.
• Have different learning and social needs and require that part of the educational experiences be spent with others who are similar to them in order to establish cognitive relationships and to facilitate their academic and social growth.
• Require teachers who are professionally prepared to differentiate by expanding and extending the goals and objectives of the NC Standard Course of Study.

The Cumberland County School system believes that gifted learners have special intellectual, social, and emotional needs that require an enriched educational environment designed to develop superior thinking skills with curriculum that offers greater complexity, more depth, and a faster pace. Our school system is dedicated to providing differentiated instructional services for students from a variety of social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. These services are designed to foster self-directed, life-long learning by encouraging exploration, inquiry, in-depth study, and reflective thinking.