How often do kids get the chance to put on their very own operas? That’s exactly what’s happening in the Burnaby school district, with a pilot project where students get the chance to create, produce and perform in their own short operas.
Project Opera is collaboration between the district and Vancouver Opera, and Douglas Road Elementary students have been meeting with “teacher artists” from Vancouver Opera. The students will showcase two 20- to 30-minute operas in the school gym this Friday, March 14.
Helping orphans
Kudos to Maya Callender, a young Burnaby woman who landed a Moellership Award to support two months of volunteering in South Africa.
Callender, a doctoral student at the University of Florida, is off to an orphanage in Durban, South Africa, where she will provide speech-language therapy for children and help the caregiver staff.
“I chose to go to South Africa because there is a high need with the number of orphans there – one in five children in the country are orphans. I’ve always had the desire to work with children in underserved populations,” she said in a media release.
Maya’s mother is one of the key organizers for Burnaby’s annual Black History Month celebrations.
Robotics stars
Hundreds of students from B.C., Washington and Alberta descended on Burnaby’s BCIT campus for a large-scale robot competition over the weekend (March 8, 9).
The students were vying for top spot in the regional championships of a larger worldwide contest, organized by Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, a non-profit organization.
The winning team was from Gladstone Secondary, which has a history of performing well in the annual contest. Moscrop Secondary was the only Burnaby school that sent a team to the competition.
The students come with homemade robots to play a competitive game, where they have to throw balls into a goal and remove their opponents’ objects from the goal.
“It takes an understanding of basic physics and engineering, understanding the concepts of torque and leverage and programming,” said Lance Balcom of the Pacific Youth Robotics Society.
The winners go on to compete in the finals in California, and the grand prize is a trophy and bragging rights, Balcom said.
Most of the teams are boys, but Balcom said they are actively reaching out to encourage more girls to get involved.
