------------------------------------------------------------ Newsbriefs ------------------------------------------------------------ Envirojam Festival at Homewood to celebrate the environment The Maryland Department of the Environment will hold Envirojam, a festival to celebrate the environment, on Garland Field at the Homewood campus. The event will run from 6 until 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, and 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, with interactive environmental exhibits, Maryland crafts and foods, and Maryland wine-tasting on Saturday only. Children's activities will include face painting, the Chesapeake Bay Wildlife Touch Tank, and exhibits from two zoos and the Maryland Science Center. Festival admission is free; for more information, call 631-4192. On Friday night, the T&T Steel Band will perform from 6 until 9 p.m. on the festival site. On Saturday at 8 p.m., the acoustic band Disappear Fear will perform in Shriver Hall to benefit Students for Environmental Action on the Homewood campus. Tickets to Disappear Fear are $8 for Hopkins affiliates, and $10 for the general public. Tickets will be available at the door, or in advance at the Union Desk in Levering Hall. For information, call 516-8197. 'Little League' elbow a problem for big league hopefuls Little League pitchers are at greater risk than professionals for elbow injuries because the young big league hopefuls overtrain when they throw, say researchers at the School of Medicine and the Bennett Institute of Sports Medicine. The painful stress to the elbow among 7- to 15-year-olds has been labeled Little League elbow after the amateur baseball association for youngsters. The syndrome, which is marked by pain during or after pitching that is not relieved by resting the joint, could reach epidemic proportions as more players enter the leagues, according to researcher Edward McFarland, director of sports medicine at Hopkins and a co-author of the study. "Parents should realize that elbow pain in children is abnormal," he said. "If a child develops elbow pain, the first thing he or she should do is stop throwing, but usually they don't have to stop batting. The problem can be solved if Little League pitchers don't throw too often or too hard." The Hopkins-Bennett team used a video camera to study the pitching movements of 10 professional and 10 Little League pitchers at four periods during the pitch: foot contact on the ground during the pitch, rotation of the shoulder during delivery, release of the ball and the follow-through after the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. They found that both professional and Little League hurlers turn their elbows toward the body during the motions of pitching, especially when cocking their arms. But during the follow-through period, after the ball leaves the hand, professionals more quickly relax their elbows. The study, presented at the convention of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine in June, won the 3M Award for research in the basic sciences. Liberal Arts program expanded at School of Continuing Studies The School of Continuing Studies has expanded its noncredit, liberal arts Odyssey Program to three Hopkins off-campus centers, providing part-time, adult learners opportunities to take courses that are closer to home or work. Odyssey lectures are now scheduled at the downtown Baltimore, Montgomery and Columbia centers and the Homewood campus. The SCS also joins forces this year with the Smithsonian Campus on the Mall, the Embassy of Ireland and several local cultural institutions to provide unique programming for Odyssey. This is the first time SCS has undertaken such an effort with Washington, D.C. institutions, as well as the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Baltimore Opera, the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute and the Walters Art Gallery. "SCS and its partners can offer a wider variety of high-quality programs," said Tom Cain, director of the Odyssey Program. "By expanding to off-campus centers, we can extend these programs to the community." Courses developed include Meet the Directors: A Dialogue on Modern Art; The Irish, at Home and Abroad; Mind and Brain: The Inner Frontier; and Gaugin and Post-Impression. For more information and a complete list of Odyssey courses, call 516-4842.