Full house for Institute Showcase

Last week the 150 La Cañada High School students participating in the two dozen Institutes for the 21st Century and Internships program held their annual showcase. The students and mentors transformed the cafeteria into an exhibition hall, with PowerPoint, posters, photographs, models and technical equipment demonstrations. Students and mentors staffed the exhibits and provided an overview of the institutes and internships, answering questions from other students, parents and teachers. Over 125 people attended the showcase.

Linda Morton, Regional Occupational Program and career counselor, provided the opening welcome, thanking the volunteer mentors and commending the students for the interest, dedication and project exhibits.

Alex Siegal, a senior, participated in an internship at California Institute of Technology, being mentored by Chris Waters, researching the early development of blood vessels, by studying the genetics of mice. Siegal interned for seven hours a week, saying it gave him hands on experience, which the school cannot offer.

"This is my first experience as a mentor and it has been wonderful. Alex made me rethink everything I did, as I explained it to him. He made me relearn things in depth," said Waters, a scientist at Cal Tech.

The prosthodontic institute, with various dental equipment on display, drew a crowd. Sean Kim, a member of the architectural institute, found the information about replacing a tooth interesting.

Participants of the law institute, mentored by attorney Robert Burlison, were defending both sides of teacher tenure, which even led to a couple of parents becoming involved in the discussions.

The astronomy, California legislature, disaster management, rain forest ecology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, veterinarian, Trails Council, Bridges teaching program, using lesson developed by Occidental College, and newspaper institutes were some of the other exhibiting student groups.

Leticia Cheng, an intern at the Valley Sun newspaper, said, "I wrote and helped proof read the articles and learned how to use the proof reading marks found in the style books. It has been fun and interesting."

Angelia Yen, whose son Steven, participated in the astronomy institute found all the showcase exhibits to be very informative and a good experience for the students.