The recent ACTE Conference and National Cluster Meeting in Washington DC highlighted many new opportunities for FCCLA and FCS teachers and students. One aspect is the new Competitive Events in FCCLA. These are opportunties like the Family and Consumer Sciences buzzer contest, t-shirt and poster contests and 65th Anniversary celebrations.
See the FCCLA website www.fcclainc.org for more details.

The ACTE conference in Nashville brought together many national leaders in career and technical education. The national coalition for family and consumer sciences education met and shared information about the trends in FCS education, the national data survey for participation of students and teachers in FCS educaiton. The website for the national coalition on www.facsecoalition.org.

To quote one national leader in FCS education; "You need to embrace career clusters. If you do not, you will be left behind."

One session was on Math in foods classes. In order to integrate math into career and technical classes, consider adding these Math components;
adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions, rounding, estimating, ratios, percentages, conversions. These can be done in pricing menu item, ordering food, measuring ingredients, preparing food, serving food, storing food, processing money, tracking income and expenses.

Another session on Sustainability brought to mind that FCS classes can integrate components of sustaining the earth with content about waste, transportation, water resources, food supply, and consumption. A good resource would be to show the film The 11th Hour. Sustainability is becoming a new 21st century skill.
Check out the US partnership for U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development (www.uspartnership.org.
How does FCS education relate to sustainability?
FCE standard 3.0 Consumer services:
2.5 Analyze relationships between the economic system and consumer actions.
3.1.4 Analyze the effects of the consumer service industry on local, state, national, and global economies.
Area of Study 5.0 Facilities Management and Maintenance

Area of study: 7.0 Family and Community Services
7.1.4 Analyze the effects of family and community service occupations on local, state, national, and global economies.
Area of Study: 16.0 Textiles, Fashion and Apparel.
16.1.4 Analyze the effects of textiles and apparel occupations on local, state, national, and global economies.
These are just a few areas of family and consumer scienecs standards where sustainability can play an important role.
Recently FCCLA has added the STAR Event "Environmental Ambassador" as well as "Recycle and Redesign" which are geared to allow members to investigate and take action to save resources. ILlustrated Talks could also be about sustainability and Community Service projects could be developed to save resources, do community projects for reducing the carbon footprint, educating peers and cleaning up the environment. It is estimated that many new careers will involve sustainability or green type of jobs.

The MN FCCLA November Summit was a huge success! A key component of the conference was lots of networking time with the National FCCLA Prosident Christopher Brockhoft. FCCLA members, officers and advisors learned about PR from Bana Yahnke, a national FCCLA staff member, diversity from youthrive youth leadership members, and student body project ideas from a panel of experts in nutrition and fitness! The Summit was 2 days of action packed leadership! The conference was held at a new site, the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Brooklyn Center. The evaulations were very positive and FCCLA members who attended went home with many new friends, loads of ideas and had lots of fun learning and networking.

FCCLA meets Miley Cyrus!

On October 29, MN FCCLA was invited to help promote the Get UR GOOD ON campaign of Miley Cyrus in partnership with Youth Service America. Our MN FCCLA State President, State Vice President of Community Service and State Vice President of Public Relations along with Executive Director went backstage for a "Meet and Greet" with Miley. She met about 50 people in the room and sang her song "Climb" to us with her guiltarists and their acoustic guitars. Then she asked for questions. People asked her what she liked about being famous. She said it was neat to be able to travel. The Get UR Good On delegation was asked to stay until all other had left the room. So, before the awesome concert, our FCCLA officers got to meet her, have pictures taken and ask her to sign a FCCLA backpack for a state conference silent auction item. The Get UR Good On campaign is on the website www.geturgoodon.com . Meeting Miley was a totally cool and unique FCCLA happening!!

Here is what Miley Cyrus is encouraging youth to do:
Make ur own video
It's easy to show how you get ur good on with a video! All you need to do is create an account at GETURGOODON.org, put together a video about what you are doing, and upload it!
Upload videos of your service project for Global Youth Service Day, a recent volunteer activity you participated in, information for people to get involved with your favorite organization, or your idea on how to fix a global issue like clean water or poverty. The possibilities for Get UR Good On videos are endless
Not a movie pro? Think again. There are a lot of easy ways to make a movie out of your photos. You can even take videos with your cellphone and send them to a special email address. Check out the bottom of your Settings / Profile Edit page, but watch out -- you'll be charged whatever your cell phone provider charges for sending video messages (but you won't be charged by GETURGOODON).
Here are some handy tools you can use to make and edit videos
If you have Windows, Movie Maker should already be on your computer. If not, you can download it from Microsoft for Vista or XP.
For Mac users, you can use iMovie.
There's also a handful of free tools like virtualdub and the bootable CD with LiVES.
You can even convert powerpoint slideshows to video.
Fancy effects and edits are great and all, but it's what's in the video that really matters.