School Notes

8 Clarksburg Students Win Grant for Invention

The Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam program has awarded a $8,955 grant to eight Clarksburg High School students, who will create a prototype of their design for a pressure-sensitive illuminated computer cable, school officials announced last week.

A panel of judges from MIT and Harvard University chose 16 schools nationwide to receive the 2009 grants.

The students' invention, called the Torch Cord, is designed to help computer users distinguish a single cable from a group of jumbled cables. Users would be able to light an entire cable with a touch or pinch and easily follow the cable's path to the other end.

Mentors from Germantown's Texas Instruments and the District's Greenberg & Lieberman law firm will advise the students, who will work on the project over nine months and showcase their prototype at MIT's EurekaFest event in June.

College Is Selected For Pregnancy Program

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has awarded Montgomery College a $100,000 grant for a two-year pilot project to develop a model that addresses student attitudes and decisions about pregnancy and its impact on college education.

The project, which will be at Montgomery College's Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus, will use a variety of strategies for preventing unplanned pregnancies, including holding student forums and integrating the discussions into student orientation, first-year experience courses or curriculum.

Among other efforts will be the creation of a resource Web site and the identification of community partners to address unplanned pregnancy among community college students.

According to the campaign, seven in 10 pregnancies among single women in their 20s and eight in 10 teen pregnancies are unplanned. The organization said more than 60 percent of community college students who have children after enrolling in classes do not finish their education.

"Montgomery College is committed to being a national model for academic, workforce and social responsibility issues," school President Brian Johnson in a statement.

Montgomery College, Delaware Technical and Community College and the University of Wisconsin Colleges were selected for the project.

-- Compiled by SARAH MARSTON