[February 05, 2010] GCHS students earn honors in national Web design contest Tweet Feb 04, 2010 (The Garden City Telegram - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Most of the Garden City High School students who entered the 2009 University of Washington ThinkQuest national competition for Web site design and communication didn't have much experience with creating Web sites. But that didn't stop the students from researching and designing "Greenopolis," a Web site about how the town of Greensburg is rebuilding green after a tornado nearly wiped out the town, and a Web site about teenage pregnancy titled "I'm Pregnant ... Now What?" The GCHS students are part of the Educational Talent Search Program at Garden City Community College. The Web sites had to have a global theme, said Noe Garcia-Mendoza, who was the captain of the team that created the Greensburg site. Greenopolis earned Best of Contest honors in a division that included teams from four-year colleges and universities all across the country. "Greenopolis" was created by GCHS students Omar Chavez, Noe Garcia, Rene Hernandez, Ivan Moya and Juan Reyes. The Web site includes video interviews, information and research in both English and Spanish. The pregnancy Web site also was entered into the competition by Michelle Hernandez, Bianca Martinez, Lynn Nguyen and Jessica Carrasco. Garcia-Mendoza said he and his team got a first-hand look at how Greensburg is rebuilding when the group traveled to Greensburg to tour the new hospital and conduct video interviews of local officials there. For winning the ThinkQuest competition, each team member of "Greenopolis" received a laptop computer and $100. Moya also earned a separate gold rating for a presentation "The Water War," and he also receive a digital camera. Hernandez and Carrasco said they wanted to bring awareness about the issue of teenage pregnancy and picked the topic because it's an issue in southwest Kansas. Janelle Dugan, assistant director of ETS, said the accomplishments of the two groups are impressive. Dugan said the students worked about eight months on the project in 2009, and many spent hours each day during the summer months in a computer lab at GCCC working on the projects. The students traveled to Topeka in January and met Gov. Mark Parkinson. Deborah Berkley, director of ETS, said Parkinson spoke with the students about college and career plans, and also took a photo with each student. "I am so very proud of our students and their accomplishments. They are truly incredible individuals," Berkley said. Berkley said she learned about the ThinkQuest competition after going to the University of Washington for training three years ago. The Web site software for the program was expensive, so the university spoke with the software company, Oracle International, which donated the software to ETS, Berkley said. The ETS program serves 650 students in grades six through 12 in Finney County and is primarily for students who will become first generation college students. Most of the students said on Wednesday that Web site design is a hobby and that they aren't planning to go into it as a career field. Garcia-Mendoza and Hernandez are interested in architecture, Moya said he's interested in political science or film, Hernandez plans to go into nursing, Carrasco criminal justice and Reyes computer science. To see more of The Garden City Telegram or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gctelegram.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The Garden City Telegram, Kan. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]