New Haven Independent

Alpert (pictured at left in photo above, with fellow Sound School teacher David Low) is one of the longest-serving teachers at Sound School: 22 years. He’s done this Bermuda voyage in years past, and will lead this year’s five-day trip for 20 students, mostly seniors and a few juniors, in late May. They’ll be heading to the Bermuda Biological Station in Hamilton to conduct research such as “identifying biological, ecological or geological trends and patterns and develop a hypothesis for these observations,” according to the write-up presented to the Board of Education’s Curriculum Committee on Monday afternoon.

Bermuda is the northernmost range of the gorgeous coral reefs that abound in the Caribbean to the south. Alpert wants his students to get a chance to see them “before they bleach out” due to global warming. Yes, that means they’ll be diving around the reefs and keeping logs of their observations.

Learning teamwork is another goal of the trip.

The Sound School has promised to cover $400 per student of the trip’s cost. Most students pay $200-$300, and they expect to raise $2,000 by holding fund-raisers at school. Alpert said no student has ever been denied a spot on the trip for lack of funds.

Next up to describe his planned trip was Alpert’s colleague, David Low, who wants to take eight students from his ocean engineering class to the International Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) competition, this year in St. John’s, New Brunswick, Canada. This is the sixth year his class has participated. He said there are two divisions - for high school and college students - and his students usually compete in the college division. One year his students outscored those from MIT, a remarkable accomplishment.

They actually build an ROV that operates underwater. “To say they’re jazzed about this is the understatement of the year,” Low added.

They’ve never won a competition, but Low said it’s not about winning. It’s about how much his students can learn by taking on this project, which includes writing a 20 to 40-page technical paper.

They also are doing a lot of fund-raising.

Both trips were approved by the full board at its meeting following the Curriculum Committee meeting.

Money came up in another context Monday in a proposal from Career High School to start an in-school, student-run credit union. “It will provide real-life skills and promote one of the state’s educational goals - financial literacy,” Principal Rose Coggins (pictured) said of the project.

The credit union would be created in collaboration with United Shoreline, a 50-year-old institution that operates community credit unions in the area. Upperclassmen would be trained not just to be tellers, but to run the whole operation, which would be open only during the lunch waves and be situated next to the security desk. It would be supervised by either a credit union employee or a teacher at all times. United Shoreline would provide a safe, and cash transactions would be kept to a minimum.

Having the credit union at school would help students learn about banking and credit, and about financial planning - and encourage them to use the credit union instead of expensive check-cashing services.

Board member Carlos Torre (pictured), who was chairing the meeting, asked if other subjects might also be integrated into the project, such as history and social studies. Coggins said they haven’t been yet, “but it’s a good idea.”

The full board decided approval of the project requires a memorandum of understanding and referred it to the board’s Finance Committee.