It was a day filled with fun, exploration, and experiencing Chinese culture in a field trip students won’t soon forget. Mountain Creek Middle School Chinese Dual Language Immersion (DLI) teacher, Xingran Lu (Michael), recently treated his 9th grade DLI students to a fascinating field trip.

The students experienced Chinese culture firsthand through Kung Fu, Chinese New Year celebrations, a visit to a Chinese grocery store, hands-on learning about mobile payment systems, and enjoying authentic Chinese cuisine at a local restaurant.

The immersive activities brought key AP Chinese Language and Culture themes to life, allowing students to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to real-world settings. Most importantly, students had an incredible time learning, exploring, and connecting with the culture.

To learn more about DLI or to apply to enroll an upcoming first grader, please visit immersion.jordandistrict.org.

It is a dream come true for some students in the Aerospace Engineering program at the Jordan Academy for Technology and Careers (JATC North). At the urging of their teacher, Amber Staffen, the students entered a NASA TechRise competition this past summer, with proposals for NASA experiments that would potentially be sent into suborbital space. The students were competing against hundreds of others across the nation. And, we are proud to announce, the JATC students were named winners!

A team including Zach Hall, Mason Rice, Canyon Bullock and Blake Bigler will now work with a NASA TechRise team over the next 18 months. NASA will be providing $1500 for supplies so the students can build their experiment, which will then be launched on one of NASA’s High Altitude Balloons in California. The winning student experiment focuses on determining how long data can be stored in space-like conditions, an experiment that has real-world applications.

Teacher Amber Staffon said, “They really reached for the stars (in their proposal),” she said. “If they want to send something to space or something to Mars, they can calculate how long it’s going to last. We will learn how long things can survive and how different conditions will affect them.”

Congratulations to these talented students! We are confident the sky is the limit to your future success.

Noelani Ioane is a kind and caring educator who has spent her career showing support and compassion for all students. Now this amazing Copper Hills High assistant principal is being recognized for her tireless work.

The Utah-based nonprofit IncludEd in Education selected Noelani as one of their “Education Equity Champion” award winners and recognized her at their recent 2026 conference. The group honored Noelani for her work striving to make sure all students have access to educational opportunities and to make sure all students receive the support they deserve to succeed. The group also played a touching video from students and colleagues congratulating Noelani on the award.

Congratulations, Noelani Ioane on this well-deserved recognition. Keep up the kind and compassionate work!

It was a labor of love, providing warmth and comfort to hundreds of families in need this winter season. Kelly Grundy’s 4th grade class at Herriman Elementary School embarked on a “Pajama Project” before the holidays. It was all hands-on deck as the students set out to collect as many new sets of pajamas as they possible could for children at The Road Home family shelter. Word quickly spread about the “Pajama Project” and pajama donations started pouring in.

Students even made individual tags for each of the pajamas and added cute pictures and words of encouragement for the children who would receive them. The students also helped tie ribbon around each pajama and organized them into sizes. Ms. Grundy said many students even learned some awesome folding skills.

The “Pajama Project” was a huge success with students collecting 261 sets. Additional donations came in from Walmart and Target, so the 4^th graders were able to deliver a total of 423 pajamas to the Road Home Shelter just in time for Christmas.

Congratulations, Herriman Elementary students! Keep up the great work warming the hearts of families in need.