Lawrence Journal-World 01-13-14

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TUNNELING FOR FOOD

A new program aims to help grow special crops with the use of polytunnels. Page 5A.

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MONDAY • JANUARY 13 • 2014

CReSIS finds success in icy areas

‘Why wear those confining slacks?’

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Teams use radar, drones to discover aquifer and more By Ben Unglesbee bunglesbee@ljworld.com

Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo

PAUL CORCORAN TEACHES A MATH CLASS THURSDAY WEARING A KILT. Corcoran, who teaches at Lawrence West Middle School, wears kilts most days of the week to celebrate his Irish heritage.

Teacher’s math lessons include a little bit of Celtic culture By Giles Bruce gbruce@ljworld.com

The man behind the overhead projector in back of the classroom teaching a math lesson is wearing a kilt. Yes, a kilt. And his students aren’t even batting an eye. “Eight people are sharing a gummy worm,” says Paul Corcoran, a sixthgrade teacher at Lawrence’s West

Middle School, who’s donning a green, red and black kilt with matching kilt hose. “How much of the gummy worm does each person get?” When the students are slow to respond, he adds: “This is one — as soon as you get the answer, you’re going to say, ‘Duh!’” “Three twenty-fourths,” one student answers. “Which is? Which is? Which is?”

While the rest of the world hunkers down inside during winter and fantasizes about warmer climates, scientists at Kansas University’s Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, or CReSIS, head off to some of the coldest places on Earth. This winter again saw teams from CReSIS, a multi-university, international project to help predict the role of melting polar ice sheets on sea levels, venturing to Greenland and Antarctica. The research season has produced several firsts and milestones for CReSIS, including a Please see CRESIS, page 2A

Corcoran says. “One-eighth.” That the students are more concerned about math than what their teacher is wearing is testament to the fact that the kilts fit perfectly with Corcoran’s personality. Jovial, full of energy and with a bushy white beard, he’s like an Irish Santa Claus. Corcoran, 64, started wearing kilts in the early 2000s when he was at Please see KILT, page 2A

Shawn Keshmiri/Special to the Journal-World

A CRESIS UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEM (UAS) approaches to land at the CReSIS/SLW field camp in Antarctica.

Kan. county opposes wind energy company By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com

Wind energy has become a booming business in Kansas in recent years. In parts of central and western Kansas that were once used only for farming and grazing, the landscape is now dotted with huge towers holding up giant turbines that spin gracefully in the prairie wind, converting the movement of the atmosphere into clean electrical energy that powers cities in Charlie Riedel/AP File Photo the eastern part of the state. That’s been an economic boon A ROW OF WIND TURBINES CHURN OUT POWER at the Smoky Hills wind farm near Lincoln. A new Texas company is hitting opposi- for some landowners, who now continue to farm and graze the tion from counties it will build power lines through to harness land, but who also receive paywind energy created in Kansas. ment for the easements they grant

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Sunny, cooler Business Classified Comics Deaths

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utility companies for placing the windmills on their property. But within the next few years, the wind industry is scheduled to take another leap forward in a way that has some Kansas farmers and landowners upset. In November, the Kansas Corporation Commission granted approval for the Texas-based Clean Line Energy Partners to build the Grain Belt Express transmission line, a high-voltage direct current line across more than 750 miles of the central United States, from southwest Kansas, across Missouri and Illinois, and into Indiana to sell Kansas-produced wind energy to utility companies in much of the eastern United States.

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Today’s forecast, page 10A

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“The exciting thing about this project is, as big as Kansas has been with wind, it’s kind of just scratching the surface with its potential,” said Mark Lawlor, a spokesman for Clean Line. “We can put more electricity on this line than is being generated today.”

Local opposition Last year, as it was applying for KCC approval, Clean Line held town hall meetings in communities along the proposed route. In most places, the idea was warmly received by landowners who would be paid for the easements across their land. Please see ENERGY, page 2A

Special needs advocate shoots for the crown

Vol.156/No.13 20 pages

Jennifer Salva is a voice for those with special needs, and she hopes to win the title of Miss Kansas. Page 3A

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