Russ Steele
Being in a room full of very smart people can be a challenge, one desires to contribute to the conversation with out sounding too dumb. The Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation breakfast for the TechTest participants is one of those events. Ellen and I attended TechTest2007 and TechTest2009, we were on our cross county trip on for TechTest2008. We really looked forward to the TechTest2009 breakfast, as it is very heart warming experience to hear the winning students talk about their future ambitions.
TestTest200x is a merit scholarship test is offered to all qualifying high school seniors and juniors each school year. The scholarship awards for TechTest2009 totals $15,000 this year, up from $10,000 the first year the test was given.
TechTest2009 merit scholarships are awarded based on the participants test scores as follows:
1. 1st place (top score) - $6,000;
2. 2nd place (second highest score) - $4,000;
3. 3rd place (third highest score) - $2,000;
4. 4th through 13th places (the next ten highest scores) - $300 each.
The SESF will be making presentation to the winners on Awards Night at Nevada Union and Bear River and in a special ceremony at Truckee High School. Congratulations to all the winners. The results will be posted at the SESF Blog in the News Page following the student presentations. More TechTest Details can be found here.
The conversations with the participating students and the parents attending the breakfast are interesting and stimulating, as we learned more about the students interest and ambitions in life. One of the parents ask about the role of SESF in the community. Mike McDaniels, SESF Executive Director, gave summary of some of the studies that SESF has done for local government: affordable housing, large scale emergency planning, and unfunded liabilities created by defined benefit programs offered by local government, being three examples.
When one runs out of conversation topics in a room full of smart people the weather is always a safe subject. This safe subject soon lead to a discussion long term climate change and the impact of sunspots have on our climate. The discussion gave me an opportunity to introduce a those sitting nearby to my Dalton Minimum Returns blog, and the paper I wrote for SESF on Cooler Temps - Dalton Minimum Returns? This paper is available on the SESF Web Site on the Reports Page. While you are as the SESF Web page check out George Rebane's Numeracy Nuggets, the SESF series on critical thinking tools. George is the SESF's Director of Research.
