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Show Page 14 The Ogden Valley news Volume XV Issue IV February 1, 2008 Tips on Getting Your Kids to Clean Their Rooms Never tell a child, “Go clean your room!” It may sound counterintuitive, but it is correct. Telling a child to “go clean your room” is like telling an adult, “go clean the garage or the basement!” It is an unfocused and potentially overwhelming request. Instead direct your child to one specific task: “Go make your bed,” or “Put away all your clothes,” or “Clean everything off the floor.” Marcia Ramsland, the “Organizing Pro” and an advisory board member of The Housekeeping Channel, provides the following tips on getting children to effectively clean their room. Five Steps to a Clean Bedroom 1. Make the bed first: since this is the largest surface, the room is now 50-70 percent clean. 2. Put everything on the floor away: start at the doorway and move everything (besides obvious trash) from the floor to the bed. 3. Clean up the rest of the room in three categories. A. Clothes: put in the hamper or away in drawers and the closet. B. Papers and books: organize papers in notebooks or a file and place books on the shelves. C. Toys or favorite collections: place on open shelves. 4. Add one extra cleaning area per week after the above three steps. • Desktop • Dresser top • Nightstand • Closet 5. Empty the wastebasket often. Organizing expert Emily Barnes says, "Children don't do what you expect, but what you inspect.” So check on any cleaning they do. If you work orderly, you will think orderly. Orderly habits at home can be a great academic help for kids. The Housekeeping Channel is an online consumer resource for better, faster and healthier housekeeping. More than 40,000 unique visitors spend as much as an hour on the site each month investigating home cleaning, care guidelines, and advice. Founded in 2004, The Housekeeping Channel can be accessed at www.housekeepingchannel.com and on more than 16 million Sprint phones. Marcia Ramsland, speaker, author, professional organizer, and an advisory board member of The Housekeeping Channel, is known as "The Organizing Pro" and author of the popular book, "Simplify Your Life: Get Organized and Stay that Way!” Her book is geared to teach the average person step-by-step how to organize and simplify their life like a "Pro." Excerpted and adapted with permission from speaker and author Marcia Ramsland’s, “Ages and Stages of Getting Children Organized” booklet available at <www.OrganizingPro.com> Science Buddies and Symantec Partner to Bring Resources to Utah Students—$40,000 in scholarships being offered to Utah science fair participants Science Buddies has announced that it will partner with Symantec to foster interest in science fairs in Utah. Science Buddies, a non-profit organization that offers a number of Web-based programs to help students and teachers involved in science fairs, is conducting a targeted outreach campaign to students, parents, and teachers in Utah, to educate them about the benefits of science competitions and promote participation among area students. Symantec, a leader in the computer software industry, is interested in promoting science education through hands-on experimentation. “Symantec is committed to fostering the next generation of experts in computer science.” remarked Don Kleinschnitz, V.P. Development Data & Systems Management Group, Symantec Corporation. “We are proud to support organizations such as Science Buddies, which is directly addressing the need for better and more complete science resources for students across the nation.” In an attempt to foster that interest, Symantec has set up scholarship awards for students participating in regional fairs across Utah. The Symantec Software Scholarship program will award a $10,000 scholarship to one high school student at each of the four high school level regional Utah science fairs (all participating fairs are Intel International Science and Engineering Fair affiliates). Symantec’s generous scholarship award is a rarity at science fairs today. Typically at a regional science fair, students are awarded between $100 and $1000 for a top category prize. A scholarship award of $10,000 is not only a great way to earn money for college, but is certainly among the largest award of its kind. Last year, Kelsee Hart, a freshman from T.H. Bell Junior High School in Ogden, received one of the $10,000 scholarships. Students must write software code that models or solves a problem. A substantial amount of the code must be from the student’s own effort. Judges will be looking at the complexity of the problem being solved and the code being used. They will also be evaluating design patterns, the handling of errors, and demonstration of proper legal use of code. Symantec has been a sponsor of the Computer Science Interest Area on the Science Buddies website for the last two years. Symantec engineers have even authored content for the area including an article entitled “Artificial Intelligence: Teaching the Computer to Play Tic-Tac-Toe” that has been viewed 14,952 times since it was uploaded to the website. In the last 12 months, an estimated 200,000 students have visited the Computer Science Interest Area searching for inspiration and cool ideas for their science fair projects. “With Symantec’s help, Science Buddies is able to introduce these students to exciting new technologies in the field, as well as help them build a solid understanding of basic principles,” said Kenneth Hess, Founder and President of Science Buddies. “Some of these students will become our nation’s next generation of computer scientists and software engineers. Even those who don’t choose a career in these fields will benefit from doing science projects.” Science Buddies, based in Carmel, California, was founded in 2001. It quickly became the premier online source of K-12 science project information. Science Buddies served a diverse audience of five million K-12 students and teachers in 2007. Its programs are recommended by many partners and advocates, including the National Science Teachers Association, AOL, and the PBS series DragonflyTV. Its research partners include UC Berkeley, Stanford, and NOAA; and its corporate sponsors include AMD, Motorola, Northrop Grumman, and Seagate. In order for a student to compete, they must be selected to compete in a Utah regional science fair by winning at both the school and district science fairs. Students do not have to win at the regional science fair level, but simply have to compete at this level to be chosen for a Symantec Software Scholarship. Students can find information on Symantec’s website where they can fill out and send in a registration form via email at: <http://www.symantec. com/about/profile/responsibility/software_scholarship.jsp> Students must register for the scholarship program at the same time they register to compete in the regional science fair. Deadlines for registration coincide with the science fair registration deadlines. Calls for entries begin as early as February 10 and continue through mid March, depending on regional science fair schedules. For more information on Science Buddies, please visit < w w w. s c i e n c e b u d d i e s . o r g > |