Roberto Clemente Community Academy

On May 20, our annual game Seniors vs. Staff took place, in the main gym.

Score: 30 to 15 for the staff...

Evan Robinson (click on photo to its larger version), a member of Clemente's African-American Club was recently awarded the Princeton Prize for his presentation at the Youth Social Justice Conference at The University of Illinois at Chicago, in May 2009. Robison's presentation focused on the "Unity in the Americas" Black History Month activities, where he encouraged other schools to adopt similar programs.

Robinson was awarded a $1,000 grant and a trip to Princeton University.

Evan Robinson, a junior, has been a leader in Clemente's African-American Club for two years. In 2009, the African-American Club partnered with Aspira, the Latino student group, to create a week of Black History Month events that would bring together African-American and Latino students, themed "Unity in the Americas." It was designed to celebrate Black and Latino unity and demonstrate the commonalities that exist among Clemente's diverse student populations. The week featured a day of discussions on topics such as oppression, youth, and Black history; a presentation by a leader of the Haitian community in Chicago; and a presentation on the African presence in the Americas, which helped the school's students and staff learn about the history and struggles of the African Diaspora. The closing ceremony, in which Evan Robinson was Master of Ceremonies, featured performances by students in the African-American Club and Aspira. In the weeks following Black-Latino Unity Week, students of different races began to interact more frequently outside of the classroom.

The Citywide Achievement Academy Expo is going to be hosted this year at Clemente. Each of the eight CPS Achievement Academies will send a team of students to compete in the grade level Knowledge Bowls and the Gallery Walk exhibits.

First and second place winners will receive awards based on academic excellence and exhibit presentation.

Due to our "Going and Growing Green" theme, we will not be printing the program for this year's Expo.  If you would like a copy, please click here and print it. 
 
Note:  You have to save the document to your computer before opening.

Congratulations to the Clemente Wildcat Robotics Team; its coach, Ms Hicks; volunteer staff, Mr Lopez; and the two engineers from Motorola who assisted them on their Silver Medal finish at the FIRST Robotics World Championship over the weekend in Atlanta (click on the image for more photos). The Clemente team, sponsored by the Motorola Foundation, is made up of high school students and engineers. To make it into the finals, the Clemente Team "The Robocats" had to play in ten qualifying matches on Thursday through Saturday. Their performance during those matches was phenomenal enough to allow them to be picked by the first seeded team to form a three team alliance. This final alliance consisted of number one seed "Simbotics" from St. Catharines, Ontario and a team from Bloomfield, MI, "Las Guerrillas". As an alliance, these three teams went on to win six straight matches and clinch the Curie Division Gold medal. Their divisional title qualified them to play in the Championship finals where they won both semi-final matches only losing in the finals.

Engineers have been working with Clemente students to design, build, and test the winning robot since early January and have attended events in Chicago and Minnesota. The Robocats were eliminated in the quarter finals in Chicago but took Silver in the Minnesota Northstar Regional against an alliance including four time World Champions Team Hammond, from Hammond, IN. The overall record for the Robocats in 2010 is 27-18-4 (W-L-T).

FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is the brainchild of inventor Dean Kamen and MIT mechanical engineering professor Woodie Flowers. The organization uses robot building to inspire students from early primary school age through high school. The high school competition First Robotics Competition consists of 1,808 teams, with 45,200 high-school students (Grades 9-12) from 12 countries. The entire FIRST family of programs has 212,000+ students, 19,144 teams, 17,644 robots, 57,000+ mentors/adult supporters, 33,000+ event volunteers worldwide. Additional information can be found at http://www.usfirst.org/ and http://www.ilfirst.org/. Motorola Corporation through the Motorola Foundation supports FIRST teams across the globe for all ages. In addition Motorola also provides support for the Illinois State First Lego League Championship event in Arlington Heights each year where more than 100 middle school aged teams compete.