Category Archives: Schools
20-year old Berkeley native competes on Jeopardy!
In 2004, when Matt Olson was 12, he was captivated by Ken Jennings, the 30-year old man who won 74 Jeopardy! Games in a row. It was the longest-winning streak ever on the popular game show and Jennings’ success catapulted him into national celebrity.
Ever since then, Olson, now 20, has wanted to compete on Jeopardy! When he was a student at Berkeley High, he took the online test to get on the show, but didn’t make it. In 2010, when he was a freshman at Stanford, he took the test another time. Again he failed.
But in 2012, Olson beat 12,000 other college students to win a spot on the Jeopardy! College Championship, which runs through February 14. If Olson triumphs (and he is contractually required not to reveal the outcome of the contest) he will win $100,000. His first appearance on the show is Tuesday Feb. 7. The show airs at 7 pm on KGO, channel 7.
“I’ve watched Jeopardy! Since I was a kid,” said Olson, now a sophomore at Stanford majoring in Symbolic Systems. “I’ve wanted to be on the show for a really long time. It’s pretty cool. I got my dream.” … Continue reading »
Unexpected sighting: Basket weaving on Claremont Creek
Sandy Friedland, who walks all around Berkeley, spotted an unusual sight Saturday on her early morning stroll.
Claremont Creek south of John Muir School is usually fenced off to keep children away from the water. But Rachel Harris, who teaches gardening and science at John Muir Elementary School had opened the fence to teach basket weaving to a class of 15 fourth and fifth grade girls. Harris was showing her students how to soften the tule reeds in water and … Continue reading »
$250,000 for Berkeley schools thanks to Lonely Island
The largest-ever single donation to Berkeley Unified School District will be made thanks to a Super Bowl contest for Doritos. Doritos, part of the Frito-Lay division of Pepsico, is working with The Lonely Island on its Crash the Super Bowl competition. The three members of comedy music and video group The Lonely Island, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, have been friends since Willard Middle School.
For Crash the Super Bowl, Doritos invites consumer-made ads, one of which airs in a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. The Lonely Island were originally going to create their own Doritos ad, but decided instead to give their air time to a second consumer-created ad. By doing so, they gave up the chance for a $1 million prize to charity if their Doritos ad took the number one spot on the USA Today Ad Meter. In return, Doritos has announced it will give $250,000 to The Lonely Island’s choice of charity — Berkeley Unified. … Continue reading »
Cal frat boy Kyle Crews a hit with Jennifer Lopez & co
American Idol fans know that when a judge says “you’re going to Hollywood”, that’s very good news. These words were spoken by former Aerosmith rocker Steven Tyler to UC Berkeley undergraduate Kyle Crews recently when he auditioned for the show in San Diego, which also happens to be his hometown.
Crews, who dedicated his rendition of Monica’s “Angel of Mine” to Tyler’s fellow judge Jennifer Lopez (telling host Ryan Seacrest beforehand that he couldn’t stop thinking of her “voluptuous lips”), made an impression despite his loud plaid shirt (“you’re going to have to lose that shirt,” said Tyler). Third judge Randy Jackson simply whooped and declared: “That’s crazy. You sound nothing like you look.”
The 19-year-old, whois an enthusiastic member of Cal’s Kappa Alpha fraternity, will now go through to the next rounds in Hollywood. … Continue reading »
A latchkey kid roams Berkeley ghost town full of promise
By Greg Fuson
Nostalgia, like politics and real estate, is local.
Which helps explain how a 40-something man returns to the Berkeley California School for the Deaf and Blind (Clark Kerr Campus, as you know it today) and becomes the 11-year-old boy of his childhood.
I spent the better part of two years at that school, daydreaming in its classrooms, kicking a football across its playing fields, climbing its rooftops when adventure or mischief (or both) swelled up in me, but mostly just wandering its hallways in idle search of who knows what.
I confess: I broke some things. Windows. Drywall. Light fixtures. Toilet paper dispensers.
No teachers ever told me to stop. How could they?
The place was abandoned. … Continue reading »
The “before” pictures: Berkeley Art Museum/PFA
Call it “beautiful decay”: these stunning photographs, taken by David Stark Wilson, show the interiors of the future home of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA).
Just as with the new Magnes, which unveiled its new space on Sunday, BAM/PFA is to be housed in a 1920s-era 1939 building originally designed as a printing plant for UC Berkeley. It is located at 2120 Oxford Street at Center Street, in the heart of downtown.
Is it not fitting that, as the demand for printed thesis, documents, books and monographs has waned, the engine rooms that produced these volumes are now being put to good use while remaining in the cultural realm?
Berkeley High student wows with poetry, spoken word
Noah St. John is the antithesis of the archetypal awkward teenager. A sophomore at Berkeley High, he exudes a quiet confidence and has a magnetic stage presence.
Last year he won the 2011 Bay Area Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam after performing “Strawberry Blonde,” a piece about his crush on a girl in school, and NPR broadcasts him reading his pieces.
In a profile published in the Chronicle yesterday, St. John said: ”For me, it’s about communicating with the audience, not so much getting caught up in the rhythm or sound of your own poem.”
In the video above, he performs a spoken word piece about capoeira in the first round of the poetry slam he went to win. Watch out for the almost nonchalant body flips.
Breaking: Berkeley Lab chooses Richmond for 2nd campus
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has selected Richmond as the site for its second campus. The Lab annnounced the news this morning on its website, saying the University of California-owned Richmond Field Station site “presents the best opportunity to solve the Lab’s pressing space problems while allowing for long term growth and maintaining the 80-year tradition of close cooperation with the UC Berkeley Campus.”
Three Berkeley-connected sites were on a shortlist of six for the campus. They were: Berkeley Aquatic Park West, located in West Berkeley; Emeryville/Berkeley, (which included properties currently occupied by the Lab in Emeryville and West Berkeley); and Golden Gate Fields, spanning the cities of Berkeley and Albany.
The Lab had originally said it would announce its decision in November 2011, but revised that to “early in 2012″ in late November, saying it needed more time to fully evaluate its options. … Continue reading »
A freezing morning in Berkeley
The temperature gauge read 29 degrees this morning in Berkeley. Citizen reporter Aaron Glimme took a shot of a determined runner on the frost-covered track at King Middle School.
The cold, clear weather that has parked itself over the Bay Area for the past six weeks should be moving on soon. Weather forecasters have predicted rain for Wednesday and Thursday.
City Council looks for new Berkeley meeting space
After looking at 11 possible locations to hold future City Council meetings, Berkeley city staff is recommending that the council select between the auditorium at Berkeley City College, the multipurpose room at the North Berkeley Senior Center, and the auditorium at Longfellow Middle School.
Those three sites are centrally located, have sufficient capacity to hold the crowds that come to council meetings, are convenient to public transit, and can be fitted with audio-visual equipment to broadcast and tape meetings, according to a report that will be presented to the council Tuesday night.
The City Council has been meeting in the Maudelle Shirek Building at 2134 Martin Luther King Way since 1909, but needs to find a new spot because the building is seismically unsafe, according to Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, a city spokesperson. The Berkeley Unified School District currently uses the building for its administrative offices, but will move to a newly refurbished building on University Avenue near Bonar in March.
The move of BUSD is prompting the City Council to move as well. … Continue reading »
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