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Orinda Academy sends delegation

to Monterey Critical Issues Forum

 

Engaged in a yearlong project about the control of weapons of mass destruction in their physics class, a group of students at Orinda Academy understood the implications of the April 8 signing of a nuclear arms reduction treaty by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Two weeks later, Orinda Academy sent 11 students and two teachers to the April 22-24 Critical Issues Forum, an annual conference at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey. The OA group made presentations concerning technical and other issues surrounding nuclear arms control. This was the largest group ever sent to this conference by Orinda Academy, one of approximately 20 U.S. and Russian schools taking part.

Student presentations and documents were evaluated by professionals at Monterey Institute after the conference.

Just before the Monterey conference, teacher Nelli Porseva and high school students Asya Zinina and Mariya Motorina from one of the Russian high schools taking part in the same conference, gave a presentation to Orinda Academy students about the city where they live, Zelenogorsk, Krasnoyarsk, a "closed city" where the Soviets developed nuclear weapons and where the Russians and Americans now are cooperating to dismantle weapons. Those two students and their teacher then spent the rest of that day visiting academy classrooms.

Students at Orinda Academy and at the Russian school, Linguistic Gymnasia 164, have been using Skype video chat to become acquainted and to critique each school's forum project work and learn about each other's schools and lifestyles.

Among the Orinda Academy students attending the Critical Issues Forum conference were Laurel Rogers and Jamie Ruzicano of Lafayette, Crystal Cardona of Martinez, Chris Gerken of Clayton, Beau Hall of Concord, Greg Rudy of Alamo, Robbie Trencheny of Danville, Ben Ishibashi and Philip Wolf of Alameda, Janelle Liu of Hercules and Lino Siegel-Sanchez of Oakland.