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Channeling discovery

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Deirdre Newman

It’s all about discovery this weekend at the 23rd annual Orange County

Youth Expo.

The three-day event kicked off Friday at the Orange County

Fairgrounds. This year’s theme is “Ponds, Pools and Ocean Jewels --

Salute to a Healthy Planet.” And it may take all three days to check out

the more than 10,000 school projects and array of special attractions,

such as jazz music performed by various high schools and a science

Olympiad.

The expo’s focus instills a sense of pride in the participants,

director Joan Hamill said.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for kids to showcase what they do and

how they do it. And it inspires adults too,” Hamill said.

The nonprofit educational fair highlights creative writing, crafts,

fine arts, photography, journalism and science.

New attractions this year include Pathways to Adventure, a program

designed to expose families to outdoor life and activities, and Pretend

City, which teaches children about the jobs it takes to make a city work.

On Friday, students from Killybrooke Elementary School in Costa Mesa

roamed the arts and crafts hall in search of missions they had

constructed.

“It’s cool because it’s interesting,” said fourth-grader Leanne Vu,

who paused to admire larger missions that had been constructed by

students at another school.

In the science and engineering hall, students pondered such eternal

questions as “Why does ketchup get stuck in a bottle?” as they perused

the myriad science exhibits.

Chasen Radison, a fifth-grader at Malcolm School in Laguna Niguel,

said his favorite was an exhibit about solar power that featured a solar

furnace and miniature action figures that had supposedly been burned by

it.

The Youth Expo runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

* Deirdre Newman covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at o7 deirdre.newman@latimes.comf7 .

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