CTE/STEM/STEAM/CAREER PATHWAYS

Lesley Garcia Awarded Ernst & Young Youth Entrepreneur of the Year

El Modena sophomore Lesley Garcia was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Orange County. Out of the hundreds of entries for a product or idea, she was the one student voted as the best idea in all of Orange County. She won a $1000 scholarship and is now one of three finalists going to Sacramento to pitch her idea.

Canyon High School Film Students Win State Awards for Video Entries

After winning 1st place in two different PSA Categories for the “Directing Change” film contest, six of our students in Canyon’s film production classes flew to Sacramento to compete against the rest of California. Each student group was awarded $500 for their 1st place video entry, which covered the topics of “Suicide Prevention” and “Ending the Silence on Mental Illness.” We also had a group that placed 3rd regionally and received $250 and Canyon’s Video Program was awarded $500.

In Sacramento, the students visited the Capital building and had the opportunity to speak with several lawmakers about their involvement in the program and it’s impact on their perspectives about mental illness and suicide. After the visit, they spent some downtime with the creator/writer/director of “Glee” & “American Horror Story” talking shop about the craft of filmmaking and the importance social responsibility in artwork. This hangout was followed with limo ride to the Crest Movie Theatre where they competed against the other regional winners and Canyon won another $500 by placing 3rd in Suicide Prevention.

It was a great time for the parents and students… particularly Tyler Casalini who hasn’t been on an plane since being a baby and could only recall “going down a long grey tube!” (and they brought home $2,250)

Last year, Canyon students also placed 1st place in our region in both categories and flew to Sacramento to win 3rd place in both categories in the state finals. Our kids made a big impression with their articulate discourse with lawmakers on these sensitive issues and how they have impacted our own campus so deeply. Here are the student names in case you see them and feel like congratulating them on their accomplishments:

Suicide Prevention
Third Place State Winner
First Place Regional Winner (San Diego + Orange County) 
“The Signs”
Kimberly Stratton, Stephen Gracia, Tyler Casalini, & Thomas Foroughi

Ending the Silence
First Place Regional Winner
“Don’t Spread the Silence”
Jacqueline Lee, Natalie Cannon & Ennis Machta

This is when we arrived with David Weed who competed in Electronics Technology and Brian Vertullo who competed in Technical Computer Applications. The SkillsUSA Region 3 Competition was held at the LA Trade and Technical College on Saturday, January 24. There were approximately 2,200 high school and college students competing at the conference.

Brian Vertullo, a Junior at El Modena High School, is on the dais getting his Gold Medal for Technical Computer Applications at the SkillsUSA Region 3 Competition. It was held on Saturday, January 24 at the LA Trade and Technical College. Approximately 2,200 high school and college students from Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura, and Santa Barbara Counties.

BY ANDREA MILLS / CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST
Nov. 21, 2014

CANYON EXCELS IN CYBER CHALLENGE
Canyon High School Team 2B/2B), as in To Be Or Not To Be, finished in the top 10percent in the 2014 picoCTF High School Cybersecurity Competition. A computer security game, picoCTF consists of a series of challenges centered around a unique storyline participants must reverse-engineer, break, hack or decrypt to solve the problems.

The nationwide computer security competition involved multiple categories of cryptography, binary exploitation and computer forensics, which included challenges with increasing difficulty in the analysis, discovery and recovery of data in a computer system. Teams in Susan Damon’s ICT and robotics classes used their programming and problem-solving skills in a race to be the first to solve the most number of problems, competing against 3,184 other teams during the 11-day event.

The 2B/2B) team included Canyon sophomore Clay Golan and seniors Jonathan Cardinale, Rayce Golan, Grae Lessley and Nigel Smith.
In computer security, the Capture the Flag competition is designed to give participants experience in securing a machine, as well as conducting and reacting to the sort of attacks found in the real world. Network sniffing, protocol analysis, system administration, programming and cryptanalysis all are required skills.

Event sponsors included the National Security Agency, Trend Micro, Boeing, Qualcomm, and Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-643026-students-gate.html

Our dance team and Underground Elements went to this season's first competition this past weekend --- Congratulations to both teams for doing so well in their first competition of the season:

• Jazz category -- 1st place
• High-Kick category -- 1st place
• Small group hip-hop category -- 3rd place

The Underground Elements took 1st for both of their categories!!! This was their first ever competition!! Additionally, the Underground Elements have also been personally invited, by an agent to dance crews, to perform at an event in May!! There are some great things ahead for these guys -- I'm very happy for them. I am really proud of the hard work and great performances demonstrated by both teams!! We have another competition coming up the end of April, where we will be participating in even more categories. Good luck to all the dancers!!

They’re here, they’re small, they’re cute, they’re LAMBS!! We had TWINS last Saturday morning! Two little ladies joined our farm family at the Orange High School Agriculture Department. Steven Ramirez is the proud Papa! Come see them……baa….