KBBI - Homer

This winter, a group of middle-schoolers at West Homer Elementary are putting aside hockey sticks and skis in favor of a more unusual team sport: building robots.

The group of 10 sixth-graders calls themselves the “Brickheads.”

They competed against more than 20 teams from across the state at the First Lego League Robotics State Qualifiers in December, winning an award for Best Overall Team.

Now they’ve set their sights on an even bigger prize: the Alaska State Championship.

The team has been building and programming their Lego robot since October.

The robot is about the size of a loaf of bread, with small wheels and movable arms. As part of the competition, the robot has less than three minutes to complete a series of missions on a tabletop arena.

One of the missions involves collecting Lego “milk” from a cow.

The students program the robot to push a lever and dispense the milk.

Push the lever too far and the cow drops a load of Lego “manure” instead.

The key, Alexander Moore said, is to teach the robot where exactly to move.

“I had to use a color sensor which measures reflective light off a certain color and that’s how to make it follow that black line that circles the cow,” Moore said.

Programming is only one part of the competition.

Judges also evaluate how well the team works together.

Over the last few months, the Brickheads have had some tense moments.

Team member Cecilia Fitzpatrick said they had to come up with a creative way to communicate with each other.

“It’s hard to talk when you’re talking over each other and we were getting a little irritated, so we invented a talking tiki,” Fitzpatrick said.

It’s a pretty simple system. The rule is whoever is holding the little wooden statue is the one who is allowed to talk.

Brickheads coach Marj Dunn said the middle-schoolers are not only learning how to work as team, they’re also becoming more socially aware.

“They’ve learned a lot about how to phrase things to sound more gracious and supportive,” Dunn said. “That’s not usually something kids at this age have mastered. There’s a lot of learning going on, but it’s not just the technical skills. It’s also the personal, social and emotional learning that is of utmost importance.”

This is Dunn’s first year coaching the team. The students have taken complete ownership of the process, she said.

“They’re the ones reading the manual, they’re the ones figuring things out, they’re the ones making a plan for success,” Dunn said.

The team is now feverishly preparing for the Alaska State Championship, which is scheduled for Jan. 14 at South Anchorage High School.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly is standing behind their controversial invocation policy.

At their Jan. 3 meeting, Assembly President Kelly Cooper introduced an amendment to the policy that would have allowed individuals who share a common “interest or belief” to be able to give the invocation.

That amendment failed in a 6-3 vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska filed a lawsuit against the Kenai Peninsula Borough on Dec. 14 over the invocation policy.

Under the current policy, only individuals or religious associations on a pre-approved list are allowed to give the invocation. The ACLU claims this policy violates constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection under the law.

In preparation for the lawsuit, the Borough Assembly passed a resolution authorizing the transfer of $50,000 from Borough Mayor Mike Navarre’s office to defend the invocation policy in court.

With the holidays approaching, reports of mail theft in Alaska are on the rise.

Michelle Tabler, the Alaska Regional Manager for the Better Business Bureau, has received numerous reports of so-called “porch pirates” across Alaska this month.

“There are people that are following UPS and FedEx trucks, as well as driving through neighborhoods, looking to see if there are packages on people’s porches and then running up and stealing them,” Tabler said.

Tabler said residents should take precautions to avoid falling victim.

“We are encouraging people if they’re having boxes sent, it might be best to have it sent to your office or to a friend that’s home during the day if you’re not home during the day, and just be aware that this is happening,” Tabler said.

Shoppers may also pick up online orders in the store or require a signature upon delivery, Tabler said.
Anyone who has a package stolen should report it to the local authorities.

Residents may also report incidents to the Better Business Bureau through their online scam tracker.

In recent decades, researchers around the world have become increasingly concerned about the introduction of invasive species to islands.

Some species, like cattle and foxes, were intentionally introduced to Gulf of Alaska islands and have wreaked havoc on ecosystems.

Biologists assumed that settlers also brought Arctic ground squirrels to Gulf of Alaska Islands around the turn of the 20th century. A new research study, however, has turned this notion on its head.

With its stubby tail and roly-poly body, the Arctic ground squirrel looks more like a groundhog than a squirrel.

It’s not the most eye-catching species, but on islands in the Gulf of Alaska, this little rodent is a pretty big deal.

Catherine West, a research assistant professor in the Archaeology Department at Boston University, said Arctic ground squirrels are voracious grazers and can strip an area of vegetation.

But that’s not all they eat.

“They’ll prey on bird eggs and even on small birds and baby birds,” West said.

The squirrels are commonly found across the far north of Alaska.

For years, biologists believed humans introduced the squirrels to Gulf of Alaska islands in the late 1800s as food for fox farms.

New research on Chirikof Island, southwest of Kodiak, however, suggests the squirrels have lived there for much longer.

The question of when the Arctic ground squirrel was introduced to the island isn’t just a matter of academic interest.

It can affect how the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge manages the species, West said.

“If they’re considered destructive to a landscape, the refuge needs to determine whether they’re native to that landscape or whether they’ve been more recently introduced and subject to management or eradication,” West said.

In the summer of 2014, West excavated middens left behind by Alutiiq and Unangan peoples. In these ancient trash heaps, she discovered thousands of squirrel bones.

A lab at Oxford University was able to determine the age of the bones using radiocarbon dating.

One form of carbon found in living things, carbon 14, is radioactive.

Once an animal dies, it starts to break down.

By measuring how much radioactive carbon is left in a bone, you can tell how old the bone is.

According to the lab results, some of the squirrel bones were at least 2,000 years old, far older than anyone had previously guessed.

The question remains: how did the squirrels first get to Chirikof Island?

“It might be that Native people brought them there because they know they’re a really great resource for making parkas in this really harsh environment,” West said.

West closely examined the bones and found evidence Alaska Natives had used the squirrels.

“On the bones you can see marks of stone tools where people were cutting the animals, probably removing the fur or the meat,” West said. “The bones were clearly burned in many cases, so people were either cooking them or they were throwing the bones in the fire after they finished skinning the animals,”

It’s also possible the squirrels made it to the island on their own, either by swimming or rafting over.

West said this is an unlikely possibility, given the extreme conditions and long distances.

In recent years, the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which manages Chirikof Island, has worked to eradicate non-native species from Alaska’s islands and restore habitats.

The fact that the squirrels have resided on the island for at least 2,000 years complicates the issue.

“It has introduced a conversation that wasn’t happening before about how you would actually define an invasive species,” West said.

The study was published this month in the journal Conservation Biology.

The ACLU of Alaska is following through with its threat to sue the Kenai Peninsula Borough over its invocation policy.

In the lawsuit filed Dec. 14 in Anchorage Superior Court, the ACLU alleges the policy currently in place violates constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection under the law.

At its Anchorage headquarters, the ACLU of Alaska held a news conference to announce the lawsuit.

Eric Glatt, a staff attorney for the ACLU, said the Borough Assembly’s invocation policy is not defensible under the U.S. Constitution.

“Legislative invocations do have a long, storied history in America, but the kind of policy that the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly has implemented is not of a kind that the Supreme Court has upheld as being constitutionally permissible,” Glatt said.

In the filing, the ACLU alleges the invocation policy violates four constitutional rights — the guarantee of separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of association and equal protection under the law.

They are seeking a court ruling that the policy is unconstitutional under state and federal law.

The controversy began this summer when Iris Fontana, 27, a member of the Satanic Temple and one of two plaintiffs in the case, gave an invocation ending with the words “Hail Satan.”

In response, the Borough Assembly passed a resolution on Oct. 11, restricting the invocation to individuals and religious organizations on a pre-approved list.

The other plaintiff in the case, Lance Hunt, is an atheist who gave an invocation before the Assembly this past July. Under the current policy, he is barred from giving future invocations.

“I’m fighting for the rights of everybody in the Borough to participate in all manners and facets of the Assembly in which the public is allowed,” Hunt said.

The ACLU of Alaska has openly criticized the invocation policy since it was first instituted and cites a 2014 supreme court ruling as a legal precedent.

“This is why the ACLU exists; it’s to take on important constitutional cases that really affect the day-to-day lives of Alaskans,” said Joshua Decker, the executive director of the ACLU of Alaska.

The deeply divided Borough Assembly has attempted to revise or rescind the controversial invocation policy multiple times. Those attempts have failed.

Assembly Member Stan Welles has been among those who have staunchly defended the policy.

“I accept the challenge to support the Constitution,” Welles said. “The Supreme Court has never promulgated a law separating church and state.”

In preparation for a lawsuit, Borough Mayor Mike Navarre proposed an ordinance on Nov. 22 that would have appropriated $75,000 to defend the invocation policy in court.

That ordinance was later withdrawn.

Members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, along with the Borough Clerk and Borough Attorney, were not available for comment on the lawsuit.

The Borough Assembly will now have 20 days to respond to the lawsuit.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly revisited the topic of invocations at their Dec. 6 meeting. For the last four months, they have debated whether to restrict who is allowed to give the invocation, or prayer, that begins each Assembly meeting.

The Borough Assembly originally approved a resolution Nov. 22, which would have eliminated their current policy and allowed anyone to give the invocation.

Assembly Member Blaine Gilman made a motion to reconsider the issue, which was approved on Dec. 6 in a 5-3 vote. Assembly President Kelly Cooper and members Brandii Holmdahl and Gary Knopp voted against the motion to reconsider.

After a lengthy debate, the Assembly voted for a second time on the resolution that would have eliminated the invocation policy. That resolution failed in a 4-4 tie vote. The Borough Assembly will now revert to its policy passed on Oct. 11, in which the invocation is restricted to individuals or organizations on a pre-approved list.

Several Homer residents testified telephonically against the invocation policy at the Borough Assembly Annex building.

Homer resident Barrett Fletcher said he is concerned about a costly lawsuit challenging the current invocation policy.

“I’m wondering if the five of you that are for reinstating these rules and setting the Borough up for a significant lawsuit that you’re almost certain to lose are prepared to reimburse the taxpayers,” Fletcher said.

Elise Boyer, also of Homer, said the Assembly should make all Alaskans feel welcome to take part in local government.

“I would like to rest easy in the knowledge that my elected officials are looking out for the good of all of us, not just a few,” Boyer said. “I hope that tonight will be the end of the restrictive invocation rules and that the Kenai Borough can get back to valuing all Alaskans.”

Roberta Highland said the most important part of democracy is creating a process that is fair for all.

“We all have the equal right to our own religion or non-religion and no one has the right to dictate their views upon anyone else in the United States,” Highland said.