SCHOOL Notes

Brain Bee Champion

Elena Perry, a 10th-grade student at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, defeated four other finalists at the 2008 USA National Brain Bee Championship last month in Baltimore to become the national champion.

The competition tests the neuroscience knowledge of high school students in subjects such as intelligence, memory, emotions, stress, aging, sleep and neurological diseases

Perry will represent the United States in the International Brain Bee Championship next month at the Canadian Association of Neuroscience Convention.

Holocaust Commemoration

The Paul Peck Humanities Institute at Montgomery College will conduct its annual Holocaust Commemoration from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The service, open to the public and free, will be in the Theatre Arts Arena on the Rockville campus, at 51 Mannakee St.

The commemoration will begin with a reading of narratives written by and about people who were persecuted under the Holocaust.

Leaders from three Holocaust survivor groups -- Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Friends of Greater Washington, Child Survivors and Kindertransport -- will participate in a candle-lighting ceremony.

Staff members and students from the World Music Ensemble will perform music composed by survivors while they were imprisoned at Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

Two survivors who are county residents, Nesse Godin and Halina Peabody, will share their stories. Esther Finder, a daughter of two Holocaust survivors, and Ilan Fulop, a grandson of survivors, will also talk.

For information, call 240-567-7417.

Concert for the Environment

Students at the Thornton Friends School in Silver Spring are sponsoring a benefit concert for two environmental organizations, the Monarch Effect and Chesapeake Climate Action Network, from 6 to 11 p.m. April 18.

The concert, at the site of Thornton's middle school at Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, 10309 New Hampshire Ave., will feature performances by Kamikaze Sun Devils, Mad Brenda and Thornton teachers Libby Edwards and Layne Garrett. Admission is $5; vegan food will be available.

For information, call 301-384-6672.

Briefing on Autism Study

Rebecca Landa, director of the Kennedy Krieger Institute's Center for Autism and Related Disorders, will give an overview Wednesday of her study on early detection of and intervention for children who may be at risk or have shown signs of autism.

The briefing will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Kennedy Krieger School, 12301 Academy Way in Rockville. As part of her study, Landa assessed children as young as 14 months to determine whether they were at risk of autism. Seating is limited; call 888-512-5437 to reserve a seat.

-- Compiled by MICHAEL TUNISON