Students filling out forms in the hunger simulation.

Eddie Avila speaking with the students about the hitery of government involvement in poverty.

Lorie Schmidt speaking with the students about the Environmental Protection Agency.

Friday, June 30th
Washington, DC

This morning was tough on the kids and easy on the staff. We had the Scientific Applications International Corp or as all things in DC, acronymed, SAIC. They business is consulting in all security areas both foreign and domestic. They also run simulations of different security situations. They ran a bio-terrorism simulation for our students. The situation was a small-pox virus let loose by terrorists. They give students a briefing of the salient details and they make the decisions based on the plan. The simulations changes and they throw different curveballs are thrown at them. The students really got into the simulation; they said that they felt like they were in the “Situation Room” in some action movie.

After lunch they met with Lorie Schmidt, one of the lead attorneys for the EPA. She spoke about the legal side of what the EPA does. The kids did not really get into her as much. The students are very environmentally conscious but I think the legal side of the fight bored them. Just my take, for what its worth. From there the students listened and participated in simulation about hunger. How do you simulate hunger you ask? Well the person who gave the presentation spoke about the history of government involvement in feeding people through government assistance. When the government became involved, how they are involved, and the consequences there of. There were real stories and statistics. Census records, department of Agriculture, stuff like that. Mr. Avila then ran through a demonstration were kids had to fill out forms, get loans from the bank, and shop for food using the resources they had been given. It was short but effective.

The students then went to see the performing group the Capital Steps. I did not go with them but most of the mentioned to me that they enjoyed it. I went to Alexandria to visit with Ryser and Micah to watch some World Cup. We grilled some hamburgers and watched the games that had been Tivoed (sp?). We had a good time hanging out.