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Show A-14 Students, teachers solidify February break plans Schools will be closed for nearly one month, and many are headed out of town by Jason Reade OF THE RECORD STAFF Willi ihc ( )lympics less ih;in one month away. Park City School District students, teachers, administrators admin-istrators and employees are still deculini! how they will spend their extended I ehruary break, one that is no doubt the envy of local commuters. com-muters. I he Paik City Hoard of l.ducaimn voied nearly live years ai'o to close the district tlurinfi the I? day Games, citing the logistical niL'hlinaie of getting students to and Irom schools while spectators travel to Park Citys three competition competi-tion venues. Hannin wild tmn jUit , . -a - ii & ' PHOTO COURTESY OF ALISON GALLAGHER Olympic freestyle aerialist Emily Cook paid a visit last week to third-graders at Carden Christian Academy. Cook, the winner of the New Year's Eve Gold Cup competition at Deer Valley, participates in the Adopt-an-Athlete program at the school, periodically stopping by and sending postcards to students when she competes abroad. Cook brought in her winning win-ning Gold Cup belt and gave the the students a signed jersey. 4' s .V.'. . i'th,-,i dip ' for all your! ice climbing necessities w-V'vVif As a result, the eight district schools will be closed for nearly a full month - from Saturday, Feb. 2 to Monday, Feb. 25. Classes will resume Tuesday, Feb. 26. The district office will remain open, but will operate on "flex time" (varying hours) during the weeks of the Games. The general consensus around the district seems to be excitement for the time off - but not everyone is simply relaxing during the break. "I am an official volunteer at the Park City Mountain Resort venue," said Sandra Hall, Superintendent Nancy DcFord's secretary. Hall will be working with the ' rrr-i ! I I 'liVf fax? ,-. r-. A'Vf V;'fe' 2092 East 3900 South Salt Lake City, UT 84124 801-278-0233 ZZZZ2 77.e Parc Salt Lake Organizing Committee's human resources department, mainly checking credentials and badges of fellow volunteers at the site of the giant slalom and snow-boarding snow-boarding competitions. She will also be "working a little bit" at her full-time post at the district dis-trict office. Despite her busy schedule, Hall is excited about the Games. "I am really looking forward to it," she said. Heather Strevay, a teacher's aide at Park City High School, will also be working during the time-off from school. "I'm waitressing at the Stew Pot," she said. Nonetheless, said she is "way excited" for the Olympics and will attend hockey games in West Valley City. SCARPA Alpha lei Boor i 1 Black Diamoncl Record Other students and teachers are headed out of town, some because of the impending traffic jams and onslaught of Olympic visitors. "I'm going to go to Las Vegas and Phoenix and visiting my son, grandchildren and brother," said PCHS social studies teacher Paul Willard. "I don't want to deal with the people. They're doing everything every-thing they can to make it work, but I think it's going to be a real bottleneck bottle-neck for everybody." PCHS English teacher Randall Godfrey, a Midway resident, rented his family's home out to Olympic visitors. He'll visit some warmer climes during the break. "I'm heading to Texas and doing a leisurely drive," Godfrey said. PCHS sophomore Diana Ecker students study environment Thursday morning snowshoe tour concludes new quarter-long seminar by Jason Reade OF THE RECORD STAFF It was one of those "only in Park City" sights - about 50 sixth-grade students on snow-shoes snow-shoes trekking through the meadows mead-ows and foothills behind Ecker Hill Middle School Thursday morning. And while they were certainly getting a good workout, exercise was not their main focus - the students were more interested in finding moose, snowshoe hare, grouse and deer tracks. The hour-and-a-half of snow-shoeing snow-shoeing was the conclusion of a new sixth-grade environmental education seminar, in which students stu-dents focused on the ecosystem of the Snyderville Basin and the environmental impacts of rapid development. Through grants from the Park City School District and the Swaner Nature Preserve, Ecker Hill teachers Paula Sweet and Sonja Swartzentruber introduced the seminar as an elective course during the "integrated block" period on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Swaner Nature Preserve Director and wetlands ecologist Tony Curtis conducted the class once a week. r Park City at i Gmvt IN. Nickel Creek January 26 Bluegrass has never been so hip. Hailed by Time Magazine as "the vibrant reinvention rein-vention of a classic form," Nickel Creek combines sheer skill with a blend of musical forms. The result is a style praised by the band's mentor, Alison Krauss, and critics alike. Both bluegrass fans and those who prefer Nickel Creek's edgier songs, will fall in love with this fresh group. The show begins at 7:30 PM. Please Call 435-655-3114 or Visit WWW.ECCLESCENTER.ORG. Sponsors: Promontory - The Ranch Ciub, Rous Royce, Cornu Company, The Perkins-Prothro Perkins-Prothro Foundation and Park City Coffee Roaster Media Sponsors: Sait Lake Crry Weekly, KUER andKKAT Quinonez is also looking forward to her Olympic travels. "I'm going to California, because it's too cold here," she said. Quinonez's friend, PCHS senior Limni Valasquez, plans to make the most of local celebrations. "I'm staying here and working and going to Main Street. ..and looking for fun stuff to do," Valasquez said. Some will be more impacted than others during the Games. Jennifer Ivers, the head secretary secre-tary at Ecker Hill Middle School, said her family's business, Park City Balloon Adventures, will have to close due to the intensified security secu-rity precautions. The Federal Aviation Administration announced Though he has never formally taught before, Curtis said the sixth-grades were eager learners and the seminar was a success. "I really wanted the students to gain an overall environmental appreciation for the area in which they live," Curtis said. The preserve manages the large area of Snyderville Basin open space between S.R. 224 and Silver Summit. According to the non-profit's mission statement, "The Swaner Nature Preserve is dedicated to the preservation of land, that, over time, has been a site and home for complex ecosystems which know no ownership." Sweet said the partnership with Curtis and the Swaner Nature Preserve was a stroke of luck. "Curtis pretty much set up the class," Sweet said. "He was basically looking for a school to work with. It's a great partnership." partner-ship." Over the past three months, the students tackled a gamut of environmental topics - water pollution pol-lution and conservation, soils, wetlands preservation, local habitats habi-tats and wildlife, to name a few. Curtis invited several speakers, speak-ers, including representatives from the Army Corps of www.parkrecord.com Performing Arts Foundation Presents 1 4 ! f Bluegrass Prodigies The George S. Sl Dolores Dore ECCLES CENTER for thm Performing Arts American Express is Proud to be theTitle Sponsor of the 2001-2002 Season. B Saturday, January 12, 2002 Thursday that a no-fly zone - a 45- mile radius around Salt Lake City International Airport - will be in place Feb. 8 to 24 for many aircraft. Despite the financial blow to the business, Ivers is looking forward to the break. "I'll stay home and play with my kids... and go to some events," she said. "I'm excited. Bring on the world." Perhaps no one is more excited, though, than Trailside Elementary School student Casey Connolly. She'll be visiting her grandmother during the first part of the break. During the rest of February, Connolly will take on her class's biggest responsibility. "I'm excited... I get to baby-sit one of our guinea pigs from school," she said. Engineers and the Nature Conservancy, who presented their environmental specialties to the students and conducted question ques-tion and answer sessions. The students also got hands-on hands-on experience during field trips -the most successful of which, Sweet said, was a visit to the local water treatment plant. "The water treatment plant was great," she said. "The students stu-dents really liked that." To coincide with their speakers speak-ers and field trips, the sixth-graders sixth-graders conducted independent research projects, Swartzentruber said. Most recently, they wrote poems about local wildlife. Curtis said it was only natural for him to get involved with the class. "The secondary mission of the Swaner Nature Preserve was education," he said. "The class went well. The students' critique forms showed that we did great." The sixth-graders said the seminar was an eye-opener. "I liked all the nature," said Trent Jorgensen as he set out on snowshoes to find red fox tracks. Jackson Chambers said he was particularly interested in "how the ocean is taking over the wetlands." wet-lands." Sweet said the, seminar will become a regular part of the Ecker Hill sixth-grade curricular offerings. 0$ Tickets are: $15, $25, $35 & $50 Tickets for Summit County Students (K-12) are $5 Children 12 & under are half price www.BIackOiamondEquipment.comstore f |