Myth: Cats that are spayed or neutered automatically gain weight. Fact: Like people, cats gain weight from eating too much, not exercising enough or both. In many cases, spaying or neutering is done at an age when the animal's metabolism already has slowed, and its need for food has decreased. If the cat continues to eat the same amount, it may gain weight. Cat owners can help their cats stay fit by providing exercise and not over-feeding.

 

Have Email Will Travel

The Hale Center Middle School e-mail project began when five gifted and talented kids got together and e-mailed all the people they knew asking for responses from all over the country and the world. The students wanted to find out how far e-mail could travel in 3 ½ weeks.
We wanted to practice our map skills and our graphing skills.

We were amazed with the number of responses we received. In 3 ½ weeks 8,676 responses came in. We were soon overwhelmed! Because of the huge number of responses, we had to modify our original plans. We put the first 2000 responses into an excel worksheet and learned how to sort data by country, state, and city. We are attempting to locate these first 2000 responses in an atlas, on the globe, or using the computer. We graphed the first 2000 responses we received. We made a large bar graph of the 50 United States and a bar graph with the other countries and territories outside of the U.S. These are on display in the hallway. We received the most responses from fellow Texans. (789 responses out of the first 2000)

We have received emails all from 50 states, and 75 countries and territories outside the U.S. Some of the interesting places we heard from are Africa, Bermuda, China, Egypt, France, Venezuela, Poland, Italy, Kosovo, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Korea, Turkey, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Australia and many more..

We had some interesting responses, some of which had local history, poems, stories, and interesting facts about different parts of our world. A few were people who have friends and family here, or those people that used to live in Hale Center. Some people that replied served in the Army, Navy, and other armed services. Many missionaries sent their locations to us. One thoughtful lady with NASA was kind enough to send us a space station mouse pad and some pictures of the space station along with a diagram of where all the parts of the space station are being built in different countries. We heard from a wide range of people including young elementary aged students to people in their 80's. Standingbear replied to us and offered to help our school with Indian culture. One man bought his first car here, a mustang, just after the big tornado in the 1960's. The interesting facts just go on and on.

We would like to thank each of you that helped us with our project. We learned a great many things and were exposed to places we had never heard of before this project. It was a huge success and we couldn't have done it without you.

Hale Center Middle School 5th Grade