DODGE MALARIA! GUIDEBOOK IS HERE

IT’S HERE!!!!

He's excited, too!

As detailed in the post “Exciting News!” the guidebook I began working on this past summer is completed and ready for your perusal/highlighting/flipping/enjoyment.

Check out the official Dodge Malaria! guidebook below:

Dodge Malaria-2

Comments are appreciated! By the way, you might find yourself in it!

Feel free to distribute in any way, just as long as you inform me beforehand so I can know if any potential Dodge Malaria!-er might want any additional information. Gracias.

Malaria caught red-handed!

Want to see malaria breaking and entering?

From New Scientist:

“The video [below] captures the moment when a malaria parasite invades a human red blood cell – the first time the event has been caught in high resolution.

The Plasmodium parasite responsible for malaria is transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes, and is thought to kill almost 1 million people worldwide each year.”

Read the full story about this research here:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/01/malaria-caught-breaking-and-entering-red-blood-cell.html#more

Exciting News!

Summer has FINALLY arrived and boy, am I excited! I have so much to tell. Take a deep breath…and GO!

1. A cool idea that I dreamed up: a guidebook/project guide to universalize our Dodge Malaria! dodgeball tournament.

The toolkit that Lacey Stone (MNM’s marketing associate and my contact who has been indelibly helpful and supportive) sent me has really helped and I figured specifying it to fit with dodgeball might help other schools. It was a complicated process to get the tourney going and anything (seriously) will help! I also have this weird fascination with little projects (though, this time I WILL finish one…I’ll have to!) and so I’m really excited for the process to encompass collaborative input and actual creation.

I’ll definitely need help, though! Specifically, input from you on improvements, strengths (other than those that I’ve outlined in the post Approach to Tourney 2.0 -look below!) and other considerations would really shape the guidebook to be just that, an effective guide for hosting a Dodge Malaria! dodgeball tournament. A key to this is that is must be able to be implemented in a variety of school environments, that is to say, it must be universal but still helpful to different situations. Like I mentioned in the aforementioned post, we’ll need devil’s advocates and others who feel they have good suggestions. As the ultimate test of the guidebook’s success, we’ll use it to coordinate our tourney for the 2010-2011 school year (I have to take the time here to shout: SENIORS!). So, if you like the idea of a guidebook, holler at me and I think we can make it into something useful…maybe even something of merit to be posted on Malaria No More’s website! How cool is that?

2. I know, the above seems enough (and way too long for a blog post). BUT, I’m going to New York in July to shadow at Malaria No More’s offices for a short while! I’ll finally be able to meet the awesome, brilliant, and incredibly supportive employees/visionaries and get a first hand glimpse at what they do operationally. Worry not, I’ll be sure to outline all my adventures!

3. Aaaand the week after: I’ll be shadowing Dr. Nancy Degnan, the executive director of Columbia’s Earth Institute’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation! She’s written papers on sustainable development, education initiatives, and microfinance- all things I’ve been really interested in! I cannot wait to meet her and see how she pursues her goal of emphasizing the bridge of progressive science education with schools- imagine the results of higher scientific knowledge in schools across America. Maybe that oil spill would be fixed…

www.cerc.columbia.edu  (Also, check out www.earth.columbia.edu– about the Earth Institute/development/wonder/my calling…future post…)

Well, those are my summer adventures. Let me know via facebook or this blog if you’re interested in helping out for the guidebook! Enjoy summer!

P.S. “Like” Dodge Malaria! on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dodge-Malaria/209478118721

Ideating

I wouldn’t normally post something solely motivational but an on-point mindset is conducive to productive and merit-worthy work. When I feel excitement, I’m at my best academically and socially and I think IDEATING just happens! This concept of ideating is what I’d like to discuss. Some excellent literature on this is Ideas: A History by Peter Watson (well, that’s the abridged title.) Definitely check this book out if you’re interested! I think a history detailing the “invention” and impetus of ideas is a great background to some extensive thinking. Another piece of literature that deals primarily with business but can apply to other areas is Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small by Barry J. Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, from Harvard Business Press. Using nonlinear thinking, this book involves circumspecting ranging from  What Would Croesus Do? to Where can this solution be applied elsewhere? The book “teaches” creativity and gets the cranium juices going- in a good way (I’m writing this during Spring Break, spare me deep thought)!

While ideating is a general concept, an emphasis on it could yield great methods of thinking and solutions: the global health crisis, entrepreneurship via products and services, new methods of approaching present systems, education, social policy, and combinations of all these areas! This is obvious, yes! We’re ideating as we think (duh), but an awareness of this grand human feat could get young thinkers to act on their ideas and turn those abstract and far-reaching thoughts into society-helping realities!

Which brings me to (cue the trumpets) the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard. I discovered this through a long line of linkage that started from Malaria No More’s website and somehow became The Laboratory’s page. (I’m not even going to try to remember the sequence.) This lab is part of an engineering course at Harvard that encourages students to fuse the arts and sciences into bringing their ideas into life. It could be scientific research, a consumer product, a sustainable water solution for a developing country, or (my favorite) inhalable chocolate.  Essentially, it is an official place (can’t get more official than Harvard, eh?) that is a breeding ground for unofficial, normal, random, but wonderful ideas! If you didn’t get this, I love ideas!! How cool is the concept of a think tank? While I’m on the tangent, Benjamin Franklin formed his own Junto group where each Friday members would come to discuss points of informative interests and means of success: imagine how these open discussions aided him in his manifestations of civic service through the invention of the fire station and public library. (On yet another tangent, the concept of open culture is a worldwide open discussion that is both accessible and opportunistic- check it out!!)

Extensive but relevant to solution-making

Anyway, these are things I have been thinking about, yet this one blog post cannot cover all the discussion I’d like to have on this. Contact me and we’ll discuss! Or leave a comment! A discussion on ideas and ideating, I fully believe, is the most essential part of every solution and to be at the forefront, to admire, or to start to feel like your ideas and thoughts can benefit our world is the most wonderful, exciting idea of all.

The Laboratory at Harvard: oh, it's real

To Volunteers: Our Approach for Tourney #2

Our Approach

I plan on having this tournament be a collaborative effort where I manage in a way that the event essentially mirrors a mini-company, but in a modern take where, as equals, we get the best ideas and highest efficiency out of everyone. It won’t be viewed as work, but rather a creative endeavor outside of what is normally seen to be “fundraising”- something dodgeball uniquely manifests. I’m hoping the environment of our planning will have with a think tank sort of feel, a structure everyone can benefit from. To prepare, I’ve been reading on management and the building of ideas, things I’m coming to realize I’m really passionate about. Take a look:

Things to utilize:

• Google Wave- medium to collaborate and be on the same page
• Task sheets and individual binders based on individual specialties (performance, technicality of game, advertising)
• Specialty leaders to report to me
• Guest blogging on Collective Solution

Phase I: Reflection

What worked: Groups sitting together, Match timings, enthusiasm, ticket sales, food sales, 10 team members, faculty team, whistles, bracket

Improvements: Money collections, Refereeing and Rules, Press (posters, announcements, TV announcements), Education of Malaria integration(!), the team stays as a team (alternates must be registered beforehand)

Phase 2: Structure

Method: Report Meetings with Round Table Collaboration; Individual Binders emphasizing specialty and connecting to overall event; Specifics of planning with deadlines, problems, etc. on Wave

Specialties:

1. Advertising: this encompasses what is mentioned above. Creativity and lasting impressions are crucial here. This may in fact be the most important aspect of April’s tourney. Posters, press campaigns, bracket creation
2. Rules and Refereeing (Tournament Execution): can’t be on a team to do this. Devil’s Advocate type people who will bring up any and all misgivings about rules, and are prepared to offer solutions.
3. Finance: Ticket sales, money collections from team, contacting teams and getting teams to sign on.  Also, one of the most crucial specialties.
4. Performance (cheerleader type fare) 2 people. Take this seriously.
5. Additionally, with your participation in the above specialties, you can volunteer to be a Team Liaison (one for each team.)

* The dates for the next tournament: April 26-29th

DBHS SPORTS TEAMS!

Dodge Malaria! a success

Check out www.dodgemalaria.org for all the tourney details and pictures!

Congrats to National Honor Society, our Dodge Malaria! February champions!

Clubs and Faculty Team Postings

Clubs Participating:  Key Club, MAO, National Honor Society, Robotics/SECME, Juniors

Faculty Participating: Ms. Formoso, Ms. O’Brien, Ms. Hester, Mr. Snow, Mr. Scales, Ms. Lambert, Ms. Soffer, Mr. Collazo, Ms. Schuler, Ms. Carter

TICKETS ON SALE A & B LUNCH IN THE ROTUNDA!  If you buy B Lunch, Mr. Snow is offering a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Deal…and extra credit! I’d say this is the ideal win-win solution!

Dodgeball Tournament Updates!

Hello all!

The Dodge Malaria! Dodgeball Tournament is well underway!  And a fun bonus:  a faculty team will be joining us!  Hitting your teachers to combat malaria? A win-win solution! The tournament will take place February 22-24, 2010 in the Deerfield Beach High School gymnasium after school at 3:00pm.  Only a dollar to watch the matches!

Which club will win? Or will the teachers rule?

Come see for yourself!

A Wonderful Read

No need for an introduction for Bill Gates. Mr. Gates, a humanitarian who integrates many a way to better the world (business, investment, charity, sustainable solutions, etc.: just like Malaria No More), has launched a EduBlog that records his experiences with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The site is: www.thegatesnotes.com

I found it especially exciting to read over under the What I’m Learning tab in which Mr. Gates talks about the book SuperFreakonomics, KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), the concept of open culture, etc- things I have been learning about this year! See what the kind man’s foundation is working on (most definitely the heartwrenching earthquake that hit Haiti last week.)  Prayers and prayers.

By the way, here’s a great interview on the plight of Haiti from a historical and geological perspective. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond (of Guns, Germs, and Steel fame) discusses the nature of the nation’s poverty situation and the state’s odd juxtaposition to a better faring Dominican Republic. The link:

http://www.openculture.com/2010/01/jared_diamond_explains_haitis_enduring_poverty.html

Announcing Dodge Malaria! Website

I must be seriously lucky to have a web designer for a mother.  She and her friend/business partner, Rupa Nadkarni, have generously donated their time out of their web designing business, KR Creations, Inc. and the domain and hosting fees to make this website live and running. Check out their work at:

www.krcreationsinc.com

To make the event information and details a little easier to access, we have created a Dodge Malaria! website where you can find team, registration, rules, and event information.  From the website, you can also become a fan on Facebook of this fine tournament and find a link to this very blog.  Here’s the site:

www.dodgemalaria.org