4 WEEKLYPRESS.COM • UCREVIEW.COM • MARCH 13, 2013


Greenfield School nominated for Green Ribbon Schools Award


Albert M. Greenfield Elementary also named 2013 Pennsylvania Pathways School


A


lbert M. Green- field Elementary School has been


nominated by the Penn- sylvania Department of Education to compete for the U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools Award. The Green Ribbon Schools (ED-GRS) award honors schools that are exemplary in reducing environmen- tal impact and costs as well as improving the health and


wellness of students and staff.


“Schools like Greenfield


are vital players in our ‘go green’ initiatives through- out the District,” said Su- perintendent Dr. William R. Hite. “I am proud of Greenfield students and staff for doing their part to make their school commu-


nity more eco-friendly.” Greenfield Elementary, located in Center City, has successfully worked to re- duce energy consumption, increase cost-savings and ensure that students are environmentally literate. Parents, teachers and stu-


reinforce certain concepts. Greenfield also has partner- ships with the Fairmount Waterworks interpretive center and the Delaware Green Building Council. As a Green Ribbon Schools nominee, Green- field was also named a 2013 Penn- sylvania Pathways School, which is part of the U.S. Depart- ment of


Education’s


dents have been working for several years on envi- ronmental initiatives with local organizations, includ- ing the Community Design Collaborative. The school has rain gardens to capture rainwater runoff and teach- ers use the outdoors as part of the science curriculum to


Pathways to Green Schools initiative. The recognition award is part of a larger effort to identify and pro- mote practices that result in improved student en- gagement, higher academic achievement and gradua- tion rates, and workforce preparedness.


Science Fiction for March 2013 By Henry Leon Lazarus S


ome Fantasy and Sci- ence fiction tales deal with the sense of won-


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der. The fun of discovery, mixed with the lure of new horizons. In both fantasy and science fiction explorers seek out new worlds and discover new ways of doing this. In the real world only those working on the edge of what is known can experi- ence this. But readers can vicariously enjoy the same feeling by relating to charac- ters of the fantastic. David Walton sets his vision of a flat Earth dur- ing the period between Henry VIII and Elizabeth. Stephen Parris is physician to the sickly boy, Edward VI. Christopher Sinclain is an alchemist hunting for the Quintessence (hard from Tor) of being that would al- low the dead to be given life. When a ship returns from an expedition to the edge of the Earth, its crew slowly turned to sand and carrying magi- cal creatures that can walk through walls. Edward’s death, Stephens outing as a dissectioner, enables a new expedition to the Island of Horizon on the edge of the world where strange crea- tures, including intelligent, telepathic non-human be- ing who can turn invisible, and immune to guns, and who killed the previous expedition members. Along with Stephen, his daughter Catherine, and Christopher, who becomes Captain, the ship is filled with Protestants escaping the Catholic rule of Queen Mary. The historical attitudes are exactly, even though the strange science belongs more to alchemy than to the physics and chemistry that shape our world. Neat book that some may nominate for an award. Liesel Schwarz has an odd version of the early twentieth century in which a semi-magical spark allows steam engines of all sorts that only require the addi- tion of water. It is an age of dirigibles and dying magic. Vampires are guarded by Alchemists and long living warlocks guard the single oracle who provides the magic of light and dark. Elle Chance is an aviatrix pilot- ing her own dirigible when she takes a commission to take a box from Paris to Lon- don, not knowing that it is a major part of A Conspiracy of Alchemists (hard from


Del Rey). She also doesn’t know that her engineer father has been kidnaped to build a horrific machine, that she is a potential oracle and the missing element of the fiendish plan. So with the help of an English Lord who is also a member of the council of Warlocks, and an unfinished heavier-than-air flying machine, she faces air pirates, and numerous at- tempts on her life to rescue her father not knowing that she is heading deep into enemy territory. The plot may have been pure pulp, but I really enjoyed the background and am looking forward to the sequel later this year.


Gene Doucette has a neat tale about a man born with the ability to see a seconds into the future. Corrigan Bain actually can see gen- eralities about the future well enough to act as a Fixer (paper from The writers cof- fee Shop Publishing House) and save people from deadly mistakes. FBI agent Mag- gie Trent had worked with him once before on a bank robbery that would have gone horribly wrong. When a group of physicists work- ing on the theory behind his abilities start getting mur- dered, she finds him again and discovers an impossible murderer. I don’t want to give this away, but this edge- of-your-seat thriller manages to put the concept in under- standable terms, though it will warp the reader’s head. Wow!


According to Dana Cam-


eron, Zoe Miller archeolo- gist and werewolf gets into Seven Kinds of Hell (trade from Amazon Publishing) when she brings home an undocumented figurine on the last day of her job at a museum. It seems that it is part of a set linked to ancient Greek magic. An evil man convinced that the figurines can make him a werewolf (you have to be born one) kidnaps Zoe’s cousin so she will hunt for other figurines. There are fangborn (were- wolves, weresnakes whose fangs can deliver poison or medicine, and oracles) helping her. There’s a three- hundre-year-old fangborn U. S. Senator hoping that the trail will lead to Pandora’s Box. Zoe goes from London to Paris, and from Vienna to ancient Greek temples in the Aegean Sea. Along the way she learns to use her beastly


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