Eleven SLA 10th graders attended the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science state competition on May 17th at Penn State's main campus.  This is the first year SLA has had students enter the PJAS fair, and we're extremely proud of everyone!

Ashley Etheredge, Elisa Hyder, and Natasha Ashby won 3rd prize.  Marina Stuart, Natalie Sanchez, Markia Johnson, Blase Biello, Jeff Kessler, and Doug Wallace won 2nd prize.  Will Felinski won 1st prize for his project on wind turbines, and Zayd Alsardary also won first prize for his project on the genetics of E. Coli.

Congratulations to all the students who participated in this year's PJAS science fair!

Congratulations to all the SLA students who participated in the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science science fair on Saturday, February 20th!

The following students won first prize:

Zayd Alsardary

Natasha Ashby 

Blase Biello

Ashley Etheredge

Will Felinski

Elisa Hyder

Markia Johnson

Jeff Kessler

Natalie Sanchez

Marina Stuart

Doug Wallace

The following students won second prize:

Kyla Carden  

Gisela Giolafina

Jasmine Gladden

Delesha Jackson

Elona Myftaraj

Uyen Nguyen

Shalia Wallace

Alaya White

The element print project extended across Art and Science classes.  The first step happened in science class - we each chose an element.  After we'd learned enough about the element to create an informational slideshow for science, we designed at least three different possible 6" by 6" sketches representing the element.  We picked one and made a linolium carving of it, then printed five different copies.  After all of us had picked our favorite prints, we put everything together into one huge and artistic periodic table.

While learning about biological taxonomy, our 9th grade bio/chem students took a closer look at taxonomic similiarites and differences between the earthworm and human.  Students then dissected the earthworm and researched some of the worm's body systems.  The final aspect of this project was to prepare and present a digital portfolio comparing the taxonomy and anatomy of the human to that of the earthworm.

I've attached the student guide, teacher unit plan, and a sample of student work.

On Thursday April 23rd, at 12:15, Franklin Award winner, Dr. Sandra Faber will be speaking to SLA! Dr. Faber is the Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

From The Franklin: The 2009 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science is presented to Sandra Faber for extraordinary advances in our knowledge of the properties of distant galaxies, dark matter, large scale structure of the Universe, and black holes in galactic nuclei; and for innovative leadership in the development of astronomical facilities.

For more information about Dr. Faber, please visit: http://www.fi.edu/franklinawards/09/bowersci.html

The schedule for Thursday will look as follows:

• C Band: 8:15 - 9:00
• D Band: 9:05 - 9:50
• X Band: 9:55 - 10:40
• Y Band: 10:45 - 11:30
• E Band: 11:35 - 12:10
• Dr. Faber Speech - 12:15 - 2:15
• A Band: 2:20 - 3:05
• Advisory: 3:10 - 3:50
  

Congratulations to the SLA students who won awards for their participation in the Carver Science Fair. Anthony Harley, Emma Connell, Rachel Patterson, Amira Young, and Freda Anderson all received honorable mentions. Aimee Leong and Brett Chapman won 3rd place in their categories. Taylor Valentine won 2nd place in the medicine/health category and received the Naval Science Award. Cody Nichols won 1st place in the earth/space science category and received the Forest Service Award and the Educational Advancement Alliance Award. Aimee, Brett, Taylor, and Cody will all advance to the Delaware Valley Science Fair in early April. Contratulations to everyone who participated!

Congratulations to all the students who participated in the Carver Science Fair. In addition, the following students will be recognized at Friday's Carver awards ceremony:

Taylor Valentine
Emma Connell
Aimee Leong
Rachel Patterson
Cody Nichols
Catherine Young
Freda Anderson
Anthony Harley
Brett Chapman

Congratulations to all of the 10th graders for their wonderful work on the Science Fair! Below is a list of all students who received special commendation for their work!

Caroline Abdulbaki
Teila Allmond
Dylan Arroyo
Melissa Buchanico
Brett Chapman
Morgan Craig-Williams
Rumman Haq
Nicholas Harding
Oscar Holton
Sky Kalfus
Beth Knibbe
Aimee Leong
Dyamond Logan
Stephanie Millwood
Cody Nichols
Bianco Nigro
Rachel Patterson
Ricky Pham
Andre Serrano
Taylor Tomasco
Taylor Valentine
Ashley Weekes
Perry Woods
Maya Wright

According to this article, one of the world’s worst fears of global warming are effects has happened. A sheet of ice has melted into the sea in western Antarctica, causing the sea level to possibly rise a great bit from where it is now located. It is causing fret among the climate scientist of the world. The strange heat that is causing this melting of the ice has got people studying it very closely. A Canadian led research team has come up with the fact that as this ice sheet melts away, the world’s shores will not be equally affected by the rise in sea level. A geophysicist at the University of Toronto, Jerry Mitrovica, "When an ice sheet melts, sea level does not change uniformly" he says. Global warming has a drastic effect on North America in particular.

for our science benchmark a group of two people had to make a slide show about a famous scientist. I worked with kabbour and our scientist was james lovelock. In our group i was in charge of finding pictures and  basically putting the slide together while my partner found fact and other things to help me put our presentation together. When we were done our powerpoint we had to present to the whole class. 

The point of this science benchmark was to pick anyscientist (within the time/age you were given) and tell why they should win theaward for the most achievements and/or goals that were contributed to the worldby your chosen scientist. We then needed to proceed to make a fact sheet, withsome facts about your scientist, a presentation using powerpoint or keynoteabout your scientist and a resume containing most of your chosen scientistswork.

     For my science benchmark, my class was separated into groups and we all had to pick a different scientist. Then, with our scientist we had to make a keynote about the scientist, and write up an application for them because we where competing for an award for our scientist.
   

     For the benchmark, me and my partner (Emma Hersh) chose the scientist Antoine Lavoisier. In our benchmark, we talked about some of his greatest achievements. We tried to persuade everyone through good humor and reason that our scientist was worthy of winning the award, but a decision still has not been reached.
    

ReWalk-

The ReWalk is a new technology thatscientists from Argo medical Technologies have been researching for the pastcouple of years. This new piece of technology will open up many doors to peoplewho are disabled (people in wheelchair, etc). This technology is an exoskeletonmotorized leg support powered by a rechargeable battery pack carried inside thebackpack that is strapped the user’s back. The ReWalk relies mostly on thecomputer inside the backpack. This technology is lightweight and uses intricatemotion sensors to help the paralyzed walk.

For this benchmark, I had to work with a partner to research the works and life of a single scientist that was on the board of scientists my class and I thought up. We had to research the things the scientist achieved and studied for the greater good of the world. We had to take this information and create an application for the SLAward (an award created in our school) including our findings. We also had to create a profile for a timeline we would create after the project’s completion and a presentation to persuade the audience (our classmates and teacher) that our scientist was the best nominee for the SLAward.

Elona Myftaraj                                                            11-22-08

                                   Science-Benchmark

For my science benchmark I had to  write a profile on Aristotle. I had to work with a

partner his name was Joshua  Martin-Corales. For this project I had to get the

background on Aristotle.

What the assignment is...

What I did to complete the assignment....

What I would do differently if I did this assignment again....

Science Benchmark

    For my science class, groups of two had to write an essay and make a powerpoint slideshow of their assigned scientist. The essay had to talk about their work, personal life, and various facts about them. The slideshow had to have various photographs and images that had something to do with the scientist. Along with the images were different facts about the scientist.

The Scientist Portfolio was a collection of information onone specific scientist. The info that we needed was the D.O.B., work and fieldof study, events during their time period and any awards that were either givenor named after them.

            Thescientist that I was assigned to was Guglielmo Marconi. One of his inventionswas the radio. Me and my partner both split the information we needed toresearch. After that we sent each other the info we found and then put it ontoa profile form. That was uploaded on to our school site. There were two otherpieces that were included in our grade, but this part summed up all of theresearch and information that was put into the other two.

Our history teacher is Mr. Sherif and for this benchmark we had to write about and present the story of a scientist. We had to make an application, profile and presentation. We had to work in groups, or partners rather, for this benchmark. We only had 5 minutes to present our information,which made it kind of hard to get all of the details in.

Science Q1 Benchmark 

 Science is such a long story.Okay in Science we had to do a presentation on a scienctist he assigned to us.He also ssigned us a partner.Everyone had a partner ecxept for me and he asked me if i could do it on my own.I sadi yea but i was wrong i dont konw why it was so difficult for me but it was. I talked to my teacher about it and he was fairly nderstanding thankfully. So he let me off easy for the first bencmark. If i could do it again i would tell him i wanted a partner and I would manage my time better.

For the Quarter 1 English Benchmark, students were asked towrite a two-page essay about the Freedom Writers Diaries and why we believe thebook should not be banned from the classrooms. Students were told to pick onediary entry that stood out to them the most and to write about how it could beused to in a positive way.  Theywere given guidelines as to how to go about write their essays in an organizedway. The guidelines spelled our FOCUS. The F stands for Focus: Does it stay ontopic? The O stands for Organization: Does it have a beginning middle and end?The C stands for Convention: Does the paper have correct spelling, grammar, andpunctuation?

For the Quarter 1 English Benchmark, students were asked towrite a two-page essay about the Freedom Writers Diaries and why we believe thebook should not be banned from the classrooms. Students were told to pick onediary entry that stood out to them the most and to write about how it could beused to in a positive way.  Theywere given guidelines as to how to go about write their essays in an organizedway. The guidelines spelled our FOCUS. The F stands for Focus: Does it stay ontopic? The O stands for Organization: Does it have a beginning middle and end?The C stands for Convention: Does the paper have correct spelling, grammar, andpunctuation?

Science

The Quarter 1 benchmark was to make a presentation about a scientist
you and your teammate were assigned and try to convince the class that
your scientist contributed the most to our world.

I made the presentation, and profile of our scientist
(King Tut) and my partner wrote the essay (that I went over and
edited), unfortunatly we didn't rehearse at all and the presentation
though factual (from me) was for the most part in my opinion a faliure
because I knew all the information and my partner didn't thus it was
only ok.

In Mr. Sheirf gave orange stream our first benchmark in our ninth grade year.  The assignment was to write a paper (no more than 5 pages) on scientist that we thought should win an award for their accomplishments.  I was partnered with another other student that would help with the presentation and writing the paper.