News Briefs: California heat waves, Idea Space KC opens and East changes homecoming court to be genderless

California reached record temperatures of up to 125 degrees fahrenheit in between the months of June and August 2022 as a heat wave that continues to break out across the western U.S. swept through the state, according to the National Center of Environmental Information.

California is experiencing record high stats in their current heat wave — in the past week, more than 270 monthly records have been broken, according to the National Center of Environmental Information. Death Valley soared to 125 degrees last week, falling just one degree shy of the previous California heat record for September.

Chemistry and former Meteorology teacher Steven Appier believes that in order to help prevent the risk of climate change, work must be done to get rid of its causes.

“The public sentiment would be that this is at least in part a result of climate change,” Appier said. “Therefore, all of the things that we normally associate with causing that, like burning fossil fuels, would increase the likelihood of something like this occurring.”

East parent and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency attorney Chris Muehlberger also attributes the heat to climate change.

“Heat waves across the planet are growing in intensity and duration, and are resulting in outbreaks of wildfires and drought,” Muehlberger said.

He cites the Clean Air Act as litigation that is currently working to fight climate change.

These extreme temperatures have also caused a huge drought, according to Muehlberger.

In response, California has made efforts to decrease their risks of climate change. The state just passed a law that attempts to ban the sale of all gas-powered automobiles by the year 2035, according to ca.gov.org.

The Idea Space KC center run by Barstow school opens for weekly after-school courses on Sept. 19, which will last through the week of December 15th.  

The center — located at 12200 State Line Rd. — opened in June for three weeks of summer courses, serving students in Kindergarten to grade 12.

Director of Marketing and Communication at Idea Space and former East Parent Lisa Tulp says that the center is open to all students to explore many different subjects with different resources.

“[Idea Space KC] is a STEAM Learning Center that is designed to be a community resource for all students across the Kansas City area,” Tulp said.

The building has four main areas — the Maker Space, E-sports center, Incubation Hub and Fabrication Workshop — that allow students to explore computer science through coding and virtual reality, explore the field of competitive gaming, form entrepreneurial ideas and grow different manufacturing and engineering skills, according to Tulp.

Tulp says most courses at Idea Space offer hands-on experiments that they can cite on their college transcript.

Tutor at Mathnasium and senior Greta Stechschulte is in support of more places with opportunities for students in the East community. 

“A lot of times in school it’s just notes and homework and it can be boring for a lot of people,” Stechschulte said. “Sometimes it’s good to get a different side of learning in more of a fun, low pressure way and in a learning environment where you’re not getting graded.”

The Student Council has replaced their traditional homecoming court of four attendants and a king and queen, with a court of six people who are crowned “royalty,” according to StuCo executives.

Originally, Homecoming court involved 12 each king and queen nominees and the highest voted nominees were crowned king and queen. This year, there are 24 people who were first nominated by the seniors, and the whole school will vote on the royalty court starting Sept. 21 until Sept. 22.

“We thought that it wasn’t really a thing that people really felt too strongly about and that, if we change it, it would probably do more good than bad,” junior and Student Body Treasurer Ira Finkleston said.

Student Body President and junior Jack Kessler is hoping to create a more inclusive environment for all students as opposed to having gendered kings and queen nominees.

“I think it will be beneficial, because instead of having two categories, we’ll just have royalty, which everyone will fall under,” Kessler said. “We’ll create more of an inclusive environment for everyone.”

Math teacher and StuCo sponsor Hannah Pence said that the 24 nominees will be announced and escorted by their family members at the game like past years. They will then announce the Homecoming royalty.  

For the Sweetheart dance in the winter, StuCo plans to follow the same process.

“Sometimes we get tied down to how things have been in the past,”  Pence said. “Just because something has been done a certain way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.  We think this change will be a positive one. We’ve received nothing but positive feedback.”