EDUCATION BRIEFS

PASADENA: Washington Middle School now has the only soccer field in the Pasadena Unified School District, thanks to corporate and civic donations. The city of Pasadena, World Cup USA and Times Mirror Corp. contributed a total of $100,000 to the school district to build the outdoor facility, which was formally dedicated last week. The facility can be used by students and community members and is open during the weekend.

REGION: A $155,000 grant from the Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation will help the Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly Pomona, Caltech and Occidental College upgrade their computer programs with Ariel software. The software enables libraries to send written materials and photographs through the Internet with better speed and clarity, reducing the need for inter-library loans and facsimiles.

SAN GABRIEL: San Gabriel Mission High School administrators raised $156,732 in grants and through fund raising to begin the first comprehensive renovations of the school’s science laboratories in its 45-year history. The chemistry laboratories were the first to undergo construction with remodeled stations and state-of-the-art computer and projection systems. Air conditioning and new lighting fixtures were also added to create a more comfortable learning environment. School officials are eager to extend reconstruction to the school’s physical science, biology and physics laboratories, which they expect to cost about $400,000.

POMONA: Students from Pomona’s Marshall Middle School and Ganesha High School have teamed up, under the direction of Marshall science teacher John Rubio, to build a small airplane propelled by a hamster running on a treadmill. Since last summer, the 36 students have studied subjects ranging from animal physiology to aerophysics, to build a plane that will have a 10-foot wingspan and a healthy hamster at, or more appropriately in, the wheel. The plane, which will fly a few feet off the ground at about 4 m.p.h., will be steered by remote control. The project is supervised by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to ensure the hamster’s safety.