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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Eric Deanda, 12, practices the Zeta Reticulan's alien greeting during a 'game show' held
at City Hall March 15.
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City brings in aliens to teach civics
By MICHELLE KU
Hovering unobtrusively in the Cupertino skies last week was a delegation from Zeta Reticuli, a solar system located millions of miles away. The alien representatives were on a peaceful mission to teach Cupertino children about city government and the environment.
For years now, the Zeta Reticulans have observed the harm earthlings have inflicted on their planet, and for years they've tried to alert humans to the problem through silent means--like crop circles--but each attempt failed.
Three years ago, they found a more effective way to communicate: They abducted Michael Murphy and taught him how to preserve the environment. Murphy returned to Earth with his alien friends last week to put his knowledge to good use.
Through a game show called "Close Encounters of the Cupertino Kind," Murphy tested students from local schools on their knowledge of the environment and Cupertino's government. The game took place from March 15 to 19 as a part of SWING, Student Week In Neighborhood Government.
SWING is an annual city-sponsored program in which more than 450 students from 10 Cupertino elementary schools visit City Hall.
Murphy leads the students through three rounds of play with two physical challenges, a relay race and a flying-saucer-flinging game.
Throughout the game, each student learns and masters the greeting of the Zeta Reticulans, which is a combination of hopping up and down on each leg, a partial jumping jack and the macarena, the dance that swept the country a few years ago.
"We do some kind of warm-up and we thought this would be the most appropriate for the theme," Murphy said. "It's a physical, complicated, calisthenic-like alien greeting. We thought it would be a good joke, and everybody would be somewhat familiar with it and get a little chuckle out of it."
Students demonstrate their knowledge of local government by answering questions including what each department is responsible for, when Cupertino became a city and how much money it takes to operate the city. Students are also quizzed on environmental issues like landfills, disposing waste and ways to reduce the number of cars on the road.
While these students showed the Zeta Reticulans that earthlings were learning how to protect the environment, another group of students went on tours of City Hall.
Most of the week is geared toward third-graders because part of their curriculum deals with their surrounding community, and city government is a part of that, said Donna Krey, creator of the program and city spokesperson.
Catherine Carpenter, an English language development teacher at Collins School, felt it was important to have her students participate in SWING since many of them are immigrants.
"I want them to get a taste of how our government works compared to their native countries," Carpenter said.
Students were awed when their classmates were selected to act out the roles of the city councilmembers and directors of the various departments. During each presentation, one student played the role of the mayor and banged the gavel.
"The students seem to really have fun when they are here," Krey said. "They really like the role-playing when they get chosen to be a councilmember and sit up in the chair. They are very eager to learn and they ask a lot of very interesting, probing questions."
One group of third-graders from Collins were very interested in the flags that line the back of the City Council Chamber and asked question after question about the significance of the flags and why they used to fly over the state of California.
Each group of students usually find one topic they are interested in and fix on that, Krey said.
One group wanted to know who would run the city if the mayor died, if the vice mayor died and if the entire council died.
Following the presentation, students toured City Hall, from the planning department to the mayor's office. Each student received a City Hall coloring book--featuring cartoon images of the city staff and the council--to commemorate their visit and reinforce what they learned.
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Cupertino, California Since 1947
