Education Archives - Page 2 of 8

Growing for Malden: behind the high school community garden that could

May 30, 2023 Bryan Liu 2

By Bryan Liu In an empire of sawdust, a jungle blooms. Malden High School’s makerspace is a warehouse-sized engineering classroom that doubles as a fully-stocked workshop for hands-on STEM-based extracurriculars — but against the windowsill, a row of lush hydroponics sticks out like a sore thumb — a green one. This is where Malden’s Youth Community Garden trains in the off-season. Malden High School Senior, Jadelini Mora, explains that the makerspace is the perfect nursery for plants to mature indoors during the colder months until it’s warm enough for them to be moved into one of 23 planting beds that make up the garden outside. To expand their planting space, the club built a greenhouse in April. It’s somewhere between professional and DIY. The thermal ‘greenhouse effect’ owes its namesake to the sheets of UV-resistant plastic affixed with only a mile of duct tape and several elbows’ worth of elbow grease. The layers of tarp are just translucent enough to glimpse the sun-kissed gloss of green-ish horticulture from a distance. Now the club can garden […]

The vote for “the Voke” has led to a surprising twist

February 21, 2023 NeighborhoodView 0

Selected site for the Northeast Vocational High School building draws opposition By Karen Buck A $317,422-million dollar plan to rebuild the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School sounded promising to many when first proposed. “The Voke” hadn’t been significantly renovated since it was built nearly 50 years ago. It was time for a rebuild with updated technology. However, the project has now sparked fierce opposition, even among those who voted in favor of it on Jan. 25, 2022. The controversy is not about rebuilding the Voke, but what would be sacrificed for the new construction. The 1/25/2022 ballot question approving the construction costs of $317,422,620 did not specify the location of the new building site other than to note the current school address of 100 Hemlock Drive. A low turnout of 9,043 residents voted on the issue of funding the new school building, with 7,471 in favor of rebuilding the Voke. However, some voters from the communities served – Wakefield, Chelsea, Malden, Melrose, North Reading, Reading, Revere, Saugus, Stoneham, Winchester, Winthrop, and Woburn – were later […]

“If you’re gonna learn to garden, you need to know how to say hello to a worm.”

February 15, 2023 Colette Lauture 1

Artist Kari Percival and the importance of connecting children to nature By Colette Lauture When author, illustrator, and mother of two Kari Percival was little, she tried to grow orange seeds in her backyard. Saving the seeds from an orange she ate, she brought them outside, and buried them in the ground. When nothing came up, she asked her parents about the delay. She felt embarrassed to learn that orange seeds don’t grow in this New England climate. With parents who grew up in Maine, Percival always engaged in gardening activities with her family. She remembers planting peas with her grandfather, specifically. “I felt like I was a sorcerer’s apprentice standing next to a magician and learning the art of life,” she said. “How we’re alive is that we get food from sunshine, [and] through these other beings that we can learn to grow.” Stories like this are what contributed to the publishing of her February 2022 award-winning book, “How to Say Hello to a Worm: A First Guide to the Outside.” Its digital woodcut […]

Drinking coffee with the Song Dogs of Forest Dale

January 20, 2023 karenbuckmalden 1

By Karen Buck Joey Kolbe, a professional wildlife photographer, leaned against a rock and sipped his coffee. His 22-pound camouflaged zoom lens was focused on his local and personal project: the lives of two coyote siblings living in the Forest Dale region of Malden, MA. Ten years ago, Kolbe and his family moved to Malden. He was intrigued with the coyotes after his first local sighting in 2013. His coyote project started in 2016 by filming a family of four, but by 2022 he was putting a more in-depth focus on the two siblings living in the Forest Dale neighborhood. Kolbe has observed these local Song Dogs for thousands of hours. The Wildlife Photographer Lens Kolbe’s passion was sparked from an experience with his eight-year-old daughter two years ago. They had been exploring the Fells and were sitting by one of the water stations. Several coyotes appeared and were curious about the father and daughter. The coyotes smelled the air; Kolbe described, “The bubble [atmosphere of smells and reactions] around us is very important to them. […]

Community outreach project tackles heat resistance

December 7, 2022 Shannon Garrido 0

By Shannon A. Garrido Berges Extreme heat waves and dry summers are expected to become the norm in Massachusetts. Such extreme weather may pose significant health and safety concerns in cities like Boston, Everett and Malden. “Extreme heat is the silent killer, [because] it is the number one extreme weather killer out of hurricanes, tornadoes, or flooding,” said Marissa Zampino, a community organizer for the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA), who concentrates on extreme heat safety. “We simply do not have the cultural or social know-how nor do we have the infrastructure needed to deal with heat waves.” Zampino has partnered with Museum of Science, Boston, MyRWA, the Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC) and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to develop the Wicked Hot Mystic project, This is a research project that developed detailed heat maps during the hottest days of this past summer to identify the neighborhoods most in need of heat safety interventions. The results are being used to help focus efforts to close heat safety gaps among communities in the Mystic River […]

Indigenous wisdom, poetry and history guide community event at Malden River

November 15, 2022 annedr 1

By Anne D’Urso-Rose I know that our ancestors are really happy for the work that we’re doing. It’s been a 400-year fracture – with colonization and assimilation – and it’s really going to take all of us to come together, in ways like this, to bring balance back to the land and to the water. Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines, Jr. – Malden, MA, 9-24-22 As the country recognizes indigenous Peoples Month this November, Neighborhood View reflects on a recent community event that embodied the spirit of remembering, understanding and connecting with Native people, history and culture. “Words on the Water” (morning) and “Project Misik” (afternoon) was a combined day-long event on Sept. 24 in a spot along the banks of the Malden River that is generally hidden from public view. In that space, more than 200 residents, a sampling of Malden’s diverse community, gathered over the course of the day to take part in an Indigenous blessing ceremony, paddle canoes on the waterway, share a meal of Haitian food from “The Island” restaurant, and learn how […]

Cartoonist Keith Knight reflects on growing up in Malden, education, race and the value of art

July 12, 2022 annedr 3

By Anne D’Urso-Rose Keith Knight, a Malden native, infuses his work with humor, creativity and social activism. His nationally syndicated cartoon series (K Chronicles, DAILY, and (th)ink) have won awards and inspired the live-action comedy series “Woke” on Hulu. Loosely based on some of his real life events, Knight co-created the show with Marshall Todd and drew the animation that opens the show. Knight went to high school in Malden, lived for a while in California’s Bay area (where the “Woke” series is based), later moved to Los Angeles and now lives with his wife and two children in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Knight returned to the Boston area last May to give the commencement address at Salem State University, his alma mater. On May 22, he attended the unveiling of the mural he created for the Malden Arts mural series along the Northern Strand Bike Trail near the Breakfast Club (formerly Doo Wop) Diner. The mural is a Malden-centric take on his popular comic series “Life’s Little Victories.” Neighborhood View caught up with Knight […]

ChronoSquad Malden: Exploring History and Identity through Virtual Worlds

July 1, 2022 Amanda DeRosa 0

By Amanda De Rosa In a cross between Pokémon Go” and a historical tour, a new gaming app lets users both young and old visually travel back in time in Malden to experience the city’s colorful past. ChronoSquad: Malden – a free gaming app available to download via Google Play and Apple Apps stores – follows four detectives, Tam, Su, Francis, and Max, who discover a magic camera that can see through time, called the Chronoscope. The app transforms the user’s mobile phone camera into the Chronoscope, and the app’s integrated map and clues from the ChronoSquad help players discover various portals throughout Malden. [Note: as of April 2024, the iOS app was no longer available.] When these locations are discovered, the Chronoscope reveals hidden histories using augmented reality. This local history scavenger hunt features five different episodes of play, each focusing on different areas of Malden, and reveals historical stories of immigration, abolition, suffrage, and labor. Celia Pearce, the creative director of the ChronoSquad: Malden, is a game developer and professor of game design […]

Malden students walk out amid faculty changes, cite communication problems

June 5, 2022 Taylor Lee 0

By Taylor Lee Earlier this month, hundreds of Malden High School students walked out of classes midday to protest layoffs in the Malden public schools. The next day they held a vigil in downtown Malden attended by Malden residents and faculty. Protestors were concerned that 105 education faculty members did not have their contracts renewed. “I will continue to march and protest in honor of this,” said Juliana Davidson, a senior at Malden High School. “I will not be silenced until resolutions are solved.” “We have 105 flameless candles, representative of the 105 educational relationships extinguished by the office of the superintendent,” said Malden Education Association President Deborah Gesualdo at the vigil. “We’re leaving them here to continue to represent every single one of those people. Every single one of those educators. As an acknowledgment of what will be lost in our district.” Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Ligia Noriega-Murphy released a statement on May 13 saying 63 “non-renewal letters” were sent out. She listed a variety of reasons, including performance-based cuts, low enrollment in classes and some faculty being temporary hires […]

Local Tibetans mark New Year with celebration and a protest march

March 30, 2022 Keren He 0

By Keren He Tibetans in the Boston area celebrated Losar, the Tibetan new year, with cultural food, dance, and conversation. Celebrations were later followed by a protest on March 10, as Tibetan community members rallied in Boston outside the Massachusetts State House against the brutal treatment of Tibetans under Chinese rule. March 3, 2022, marked the first day of the new year on the Tibetan lunisolar calendar, called “Losar,” which means “new year” in Tibetan. Tibetans living in the greater Boston area preserved this tradition by holding an annual ceremony for the most important holiday in their culture. Roughly 150 Tibetans gathered in a community center at Chelsea for morning prayers and later held an evening celebration in Watertown. Although no official census data exists, members of the Tibetan community say that there are approximately 800 – 1000 Tibetans living in the greater Boston area with the highest concentration in Malden and Medford. The Tibetan new year has been celebrated since the enthronement of the first emperor of Tibet, Nyatri Tsenpo, in 127 BC. This […]