There is a very special place located next to the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley. It is a place where students are prepared with real world skills through an interdisciplinary curriculum. It is a place where teachers encourage students to get involved in their communities. It is a place where I never know what to expect. It is a place called the School of Environmental Studies, and over the past two years of attendance, I have come to consider it my second home.

SES is an optional high school connected with the Minnesota Zoo offered to School District 196 students during their junior and senior years.

SES has prepared me with real world skills such as public speaking and teamwork. Particularly during senior year at SES, a significant portion of the curriculum is dedicated to exposing students to public speaking.

A few months ago, as a part of the population unit, we were assigned a project in which we had to present a world issue relating to population. We could choose to complete one out of a few presentation styles, including a poster board exhibit, a featured speaker and a 15-minute speech in the school auditorium.

I was selected to be a featured speaker, and I gave my speech on world hunger and unequal distribution of food. In the process of preparing and giving my speech, I gained much confidence in myself as a researcher and speaker that I couldn’t have gained from a textbook. At SES, we are not taught by example. Rather, we are taught through our own experiences.

A lot of the work assigned at SES is group work. As in real professions, working in groups helps students learn communication and balance between not participating and taking over the entire project.

One of the first projects students do as juniors at SES is called Pond Profile. In this project, groups travel to a local pond and collect data regarding water quality, aquatic animal species and vegetation in and around the pond. Each person has roles and responsibilities to fulfill regarding the final product, which is a lengthy technical paper about the health of the group’s pond. This project, along with many other assignments in the SES curriculum, helps students excel in communication and leadership skills.

Another large part of the school’s mission statement includes involvement in the community. After teachers prepare us with practical skills, we are encouraged to “take to the streets,” if you will, and put what we’ve learned into action. All seniors complete a senior project toward the end of the year that requires them to get out in the community and attempt to make a difference in a big way.

In 2007, a 175-foot wind turbine was built at SES as a senior project. The turbine provides electricity for the city grid, giving back to the community, as well as leading by example in alternative energy sources.

Other students from SES attended the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009 and then Cancun, Mexico, in 2010. The SES teachers and curriculum allow and encourage students to get involved beyond the walls of the school.

Although SES is not a school for everyone, if you’re interested in the environment, want a more hands-on approach to learning, or value community involvement as a part of academic learning, you should consider this alternative school. Attending SES for the past two years has helped me grow as a student and leader as well as prepared me for college and beyond.

Hunter Paulson-Smith is a Thisweek Newspapers intern who attends the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley.

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A hometown player scored a classic breakaway goal to tie the game for his team. He got a loud round of applause from the crowd.

Then the local goalie made a diving stop as he slid across the crease to thwart a breakaway and keep the game tied. He also received a nice hand from local fans.

Then a player on the hometown team made an illegal hit and was called for a penalty as his opponent sprawled across the ice and into the boards.

The cheer was much, much louder and longer than for either of the other plays.

An impressionable 10-year-old youth hockey player told his grandfather that he thought it was a great hit. The grandfather answered, “Yes, but now our team is short-handed.” Still, the 10-year-old saved his loudest cheer for that play.

The other team scored a goal while the local team was short a player, broke the tie and went on to win the game.

That real-life scenario gives an idea how hard it will be to change the culture of high school and youth hockey, in which the loudest cheers often come when an opposing player is knocked to the ice.

But the Minnesota State High School League and Minnesota Hockey, the organization that runs youth hockey in Minnesota, made changes in their rules within days after Benilde-St. Margaret’s player Jack Jablonski was paralyzed because of an accidental hit from behind in a junior varsity game on Dec. 30.

Both organizations should be commended for making timely and needed rule changes. Now the battle will be to change that culture that has honored the big hit in a game more than a good goal, a good pass or a good save by a goalie.

A veteran Minnesota hockey official, while saying he thought the changes bordered on being a knee-jerk reaction because they were made so quickly without a chance for training, still thinks the changes were needed.

There will be some growing pains for players, coaches and officials, he said, but the game will be better.

The official, who began officiating youth games while he was a high school player and has officiated high school games for 13 years and college games for six, says he has already seen a difference in play this season.

“I refereed two bantam games this week that were the best bantam games I have seen all year,” the referee said last week. “The focus wasn’t on hitting. It was on speed and moving the puck.”

Both the high school league and state youth hockey association put harsher rules in place for checking from behind, for boarding (a hit or trip that sends an opponent violently into the boards), and for contact-to-the-head situations.

Officials can enforce a game disqualification if they think a hit from behind is flagrant.

“There will be growing pains and it will be more of an adjustment for some,” the referee said. “There is more of a spotlight on officials and some might call a penalty (under the new rules) when it doesn’t need to be called. But in the long run it will be beneficial.”

The biggest criticism from some has been that the rule changes will take away “big” hits, something that’s been part of hockey in Minnesota for decades.

“But that’s not true,” said the referee. “I’ve seen some of the best hits since the changes. And we’ve got to change the culture.”

The spotlight on officials will shine even brighter the next couple of weeks as sectional and state tournament play take place. There will no doubt be some criticism.

But both the Minnesota State High School League and Minnesota Hockey deserve praise for their actions to implement stricter penalties for dangerous hits.

In the long run those actions will make the sport of hockey, in the State of Hockey, a better game. And that should be the ultimate goal.

An editorial from the ECM Editorial Board. Thisweek Newspapers and the Dakota County Tribune are part of ECM Publishers Inc.

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While gambling proponents will always be there to push new casinos and slot machines as a way to solve the state’s financial issue du jour, this moment of heightened discussion is a good time to point out major problems with their proposals that seem to get very little attention in the media or at the Legislature.

It is important to understand that Minnesota’s state constitution prohibits most gambling.

The constitution has been amended only twice to allow specific types of gambling: once for pari-mutuel betting at racetracks, and once to establish the state lottery.

Tribal casinos exist in Minnesota and throughout the country because of the Indian Gambling Regulatory Act, which was passed by Congress in 1988 and supersedes state gambling prohibitions.

An 18-page opinion issued by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office in March 2005 states that a state-run casino does not fall under the definition of the state lottery as understood and approved by voters and “that the operation of slot machines, roulette wheels or craps by the State would violate Article XIII, Section 5 of the Minnesota Constitution.”

The opinion further concludes that in order to pursue creation of any state-run casino, the governor and Legislature should “first seek approval of a constitutional amendment from the voters.”

There is another constitutional problem with these proposals.

The only possible way for these proposals to be considered legal is to conclude that they are authorized under the constitutional provision creating the state lottery. This is the opposite of the conclusion in the attorney general’s opinion.

But even assuming that the attorney general was wrong and that casinos can be built as part of the state lottery, then according to the constitution “not less than 40 percent of the net proceeds from any state-operated lottery must be credited to the (environment and natural resources) fund.”

All of the gambling-based stadium proposals that we have seen fail this constitutional test.

The proposals use various gimmicks that will not hold up in court to give money to the state as a gambling tax or fee. They pretend that this money that comes to the state is somehow different and would not be considered as “proceeds” to the state from the lottery.

This gimmick is clearly designed to get around the constitution and would not be allowed by a court.  The attorney general opinion states that failure to allocate 40 percent of proceeds to the environment and natural resources fund is “clearly unconstitutional.”

An attorney, who is working for the racetracks that are attempting to get a law passed to authorize casinos at their tracks, argues that the state’s constitution doesn’t actually prohibit most gambling as we assert.

He says the constitution only mentions “lotteries” and, therefore, everything else is permitted.

It sounds logical. But the existence of his racing clients and the fact that establishing their pari-mutuel gambling businesses required a constitutional amendment is proof to the contrary.

In the 1800s, when Minnesota’s constitution was written, there were no state lotteries as we think of them today.  The term lottery was used to describe any game of chance, from betting on horses to craps. Most important, it has always been interpreted as such by Minnesota courts.

Expanded gambling isn’t the simple “solution” that proponents claim. The current proposals are actually risky and unreliable. They are an invitation for extended court battles.

The governor, the Legislature, the Vikings and all of us would be better served by focusing on solutions that don’t violate the state’s constitution.

The writers are ECM Editorial Board member Gene Merriam of Coon Rapids, a former DFL state senator and former Department of Natural Resources commissioner, and Dennis Ozment of Rosemount, a former Republican state representative and former chair of the Legislative Committee on Minnesota Resources. Thisweek Newspapers and the Dakota County Tribune are part of ECM Publishers Inc.

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