April 30, 2016 - Friday, April 29th was the last CDS Teacher/Staff of the Month presentation for the 2015-2016 school year.

May 9, 2016 - Cathy & Art McCall described the formation and mission of Lifedonor.  Cathy and Art experienced the loss of
their 19 year old son who at an earlier age independently decided to donate his organs, skin, tissue, and other parts of his body to eligible recipients.  The sense of calm, hope and recipient gratitude they experienced as a result of his donations prompted them to publicize and encourage others to make and document a conscious decision to be an organ donor.

All major religions and the medical community support organ donations.  After death has been certified by two doctors a separate medical team will remove organs and tissue.  The hospital determines if the deceased individual is registered on the Donor Network of Arizona and, if not, may respectfully encourage the surviving family members to consider organ donation.  Potential recipients are identified  on  a master list maintained by the United Network for Organ Sharing. Up to eight individuals of any age may potentially benefit from the decision to donate organs.  When a driver's license is issued or renewed, an individual can specify they want to be an organ donor.  If so this will be printed on the license and transmitted to the Donor Network of Arizona.  The physical license does not have to be recovered by the hospital in order to initiate donation.
Some years later their daughter, a diabetic, required a kidney.  There were no matched in their family however she received a kidney via the United Network for Organ Sharing.

 

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May 1, 2016 - Sonja Klinsky, Professor and Senior Scientist at ASU's School of Sustainability described the catastrophic global consequences of rising temperatures and the 2015 Paris conference climate agreement. In summary 195 countries agreed to limit and reduce temperature rise, set targets and publicly track progress, and improve adaptation and support processes.  Some major differences between the 2015 Paris agreement and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol are that the USA signed the 2015 agreement, that it is voluntary and that it promotes transparency and resetting of goals every 5 years.  

     She described the tension between developing countries (China, India) and developed ones (USA, Europe, Japan).  Recent climate changes are due to historic emissions (Industrial Revolution forward) hat were a byproduct of wealth creation in developed nations.  Yet the future cost of emission control and reduction will fall more heavily on developing nations. Transfers of wealth and technological knowledge are seen (the 2015 Paris agreement) as necessary both to mitigate the developing nations disproportionate cost of emission control/reduction and to raise living standards in those nations.

     Excellent speaker and program.   See  http://schoolofsustainability.asu.edu  for more information. 

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  April 25, 2016 - Dena Brinkman told us how she came to run the Marathon in Greece. She was born in Greece but as a young child she came to live with relatives in South Dakota. She left there to come to a warmer climate several years ago but didn't begin to run until she was 62. She ran in the Phoenix and Boston Marathons before running the Greek Marathon last November. She came in 7th out of 25 in her age range. Dena also gave us a brief history of the marathon from its early beginnings to the present day. Her personal goal is to "beat women with wrinkles". She also shared with us some of the life lessons she learned while becoming a successful marathon runner.

 

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