I broke my USB stick by knocking the chair against it.  Now when i put the stick into the harddrive the light doesn't flash.  I was told that the data can be retreived, can anyone help?

this depends how much work your planning on putting into it...
 
if you get a small screwdriver you can pry the 2 peices of plastic that make the housing apart and you will see a metal usb connecter and a small board with some resistors and the flash memory and a light on it...
 
the usb connector is only held on by a little metal clip and then the electrical connections, so once you open it you will prolly see a wire that isn't makeing contact, or a drop of solder that is brocken or something, and from there its just about reconnecting it...
 
that is assumeing the best though, you could have really messed it up when you hit it with a chair and then your only chance is sending it to a data recovery facility, and i don't think your homework is worth a few thousand dollars...