Due to a School District of Philadelphia professional development day on Friday, 12/17, SLA will follow a modified half-day schedule, as listed below.
Friday, 12/19 – SDP Staff Professional Development
B2: 08:15 - 08:55
C2: 09:00 - 09:40
D2: 09:45 - 10:25
E2: 10:30 - 11:10
X2/Y2: 11:15 - 11:55
Lunch/Dismissal: 12:00 - 12:30
Due to a School District of Philadelphia professional development day on Friday, 11/19, followed by report card conference days on Monday, 11/22, and Tuesday, 11/23, SLA will follow modified half-day schedules, as listed below. Wednesday, 11/24, will run on the normal SLA schedule, but with no afternoon special programming (9th grade mini-courses and 10th/11th ILPs). Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Friday, 11/19 – SDP Staff Professional Development
B2: 08:15 - 08:55
C2: 09:00 - 09:40
D2: 09:45 - 10:25
E2: 10:30 - 11:10
X2/Y2: 11:15 - 11:55
Lunch/Dismissal: 12:00 - 12:30
Monday, 11/22 – Report Card Conferences
A1: 08:15 - 08:55
B1: 09:00 - 09:40
C1: 09:45 - 10:25
D1: 10:30 - 11:10
X1/Y1: 11:15 - 11:55
Lunch/Dismissal: 12:00 - 12:30
Afternoon Conferences: 01:00 - 04:00
Tuesday, 11/23 – Report Card Conferences
E1: 08:15 - 08:55
A2: 09:00 - 09:40
B2: 09:45 - 10:25
C2: 10:30 - 11:10
X2/Y2: 11:15 - 11:55
Lunch/Dismissal: 12:00 - 12:30
Evening Conferences: 04:00 - 07:00
Wednesday, 11/24 – 12:50pm Dismissal for Thanksgiving Break
D2: 08:15 - 09:20
E2: 09:25 - 10:30
A1: 10:35 - 11:40
B1: 11:45 - 12:50
Lunch/Dismissal: 12:50 - 01:20 (No Afternoon Special Programs: Mini-Courses/ILPs)
Due to the continued flooding in the surrounding areas, the School District of Philadelphia has determined that Friday, 9/3, is going to be a virtual school day for all students in the district. Students should log into their classes via Zoom link posted at the top of their course Canvas pages. Those links should be posted by Friday morning, if not sooner. Below is the modified virtual schedule for the day. We will see everyone in person again on Wednesday, 9/8, following the Labor Day and Rosh Hashanah no-school days.
Friday, 9/3, Virtual Schedule
B2: 9:00 - 9:30
C2: 9:35 - 10:05
Y2: 10:10 - 10:40
X2: 10:45 - 11:15
D2: 11:20 - 11:50
E2: 11:55 - 12:25
Independent Work Time: 12:30 - 3:00
Welcome back to school, SLA students! On the first two days of school we will follow the below special schedules. We will start following our usual schedule (as printed on student schedules) each day beginning on Thursday, 9/2. Have a great year, SLA community!
TUESDAY, 8/31:
08:15am - 10:05am Advisory
10:10am - 10:55am E1 Band
11:00am - 11:45am Y2 Band
11:50am - 12:35pm X2 Band
12:40pm - 01:25pm A2 Band
01:30pm - 02:15pm B2 Band
02:20pm - 03:05pm C2 Band
WEDNESDAY, 9/1:
08:15am - 09:10am D2 Band
09:15am - 10:10am E2 Band
10:15am - 11:10am A1 Band
11:15am - 12:10pm B1 Band
12:15pm - 12:45pm Lunch (10/11th grades) / Advisory (9/12th grades)
12:50pm - 01:20pm Advisory (10/11th grades) / Lunch (9/12th grades)
Please see below for updates to our pre-season tryout/practice schedule. If a sport is not listed, it’s tryout info has not changed.. As a reminder, students may not participate without a fully completed PIAA physical. Feel free to reach out to Ms. Siswick (zsiswick@scienceleadership.org) with any questions.
Current COVID-related guidance requires all athletes and coaches to be masked indoors. Vaccinated individuals may be unmasked outdoors while unvaccinated individuals must be masked at all times.
Girls Soccer
Tuesday, August 17th 2pm-SLA/Franklin gym (note location change)
Wednesday, August 18th 4pm-SLA/Franklin gym (note location change)
Thursday, August 19th 4pm-Marconi Playground OR SLA gym, weather dependent
Boys Soccer (JV&Varsity)
Tuesday, August 17th 12:15pm-SLA/Franklin gym (note time and location change)
Wednesday, August 18th 12:15-SLA/Franklin gym (note time and location change)
Thursday, August 19th-time and location TBD, weather dependent
Girls Volleyball (JV&Varsity)
Tuesday, August 23rd 2-4pm-SLA/Franklin gym
Wednesday, August 24th 2-4pm-SLA/Franklin gym
Thursday, August 25th 2-4pm-SLA/Franklin gym
Co-Ed Cross Country
Tuesday, August 23rd 3:30pm-meet outside auditorium
Wednesday, August 24th 3:30pm-meet outside auditorium
Thursday, August 25th 3:30pm-meet outside auditorium
Girls and Boys Ultimate
Tuesday, August 17th - meet in SLA Commons at 12:15 (weather permitting)
Wednesday, August 18th - meet in SLA Commons at 12:15 (weather permitting)
Thursday, August 19th - meet in SLA Commons at 12:15 (weather permitting)
Hello SLA Families,
We hope you are enjoying the last few weeks of summer! See below for the first week of tryout/pre-season information for our fall sports. All student-athletes MUST have a fully completed PIAA physical (click on document linked below) dated June 1, 2021 or later in order to participate in any workout. If families encounter difficulties obtaining a physical from their physician’s office, most urgent care clinics will complete them for $40-50.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to any of the coaches and/or our Athletic Director, Ms. Siswick, with any questions or concerns.
Girls Soccer
Coach: Zoe Siswick (zsiswick@scienceleadership.org)
Pre-Season/Tryout Information: Tuesday, August 17th 2pm Wednesday, August 18th and Thursday, August 19th, 4pm Marconi Playground, Broad & Oregon Ave.
Boys Soccer
Coach: Jimmy O’Karma (jgokarmajr@philasd.org)
Monday August 16th, 2021 10am- 11am @ Sacks Playground (4th and Washington Avenue)- This is document collection day. Please bring your completed physical! If you want to stay and play pickup (physical needed), we will be there for the hour.
Tuesday August 17th- Friday August 20th @ Sacks Playground (4th and Washington) 10am-12pm Preseason Practice
Football
Coach: Lorell McCook (lamccook@philasd.org)
Monday, August 9th: Free physicals at school (use Ben Franklin/Broad St. entrance) at 3:30pm Must have parent signatures on physical form Tuesday, August 10th-Friday, August 13th-Heat acclimatization/tryouts) 3:30 at 18th & Wallace
Cross Country Coach: Jaclyn Rickus (jrickus@philasd.org)
Friday, August 20th-time TBD
Girls Volleyball
Coach: Karina Hirschfield (khirschfield@scienceleadership.org)
Tryouts Wednesday, August 18th & Thursday August 19th, SLA gym, time TBD
Ultimate Frisbee
Girls Coach: John Henkel (jhenkel@scienceleadership.org)
Boys Coach: Chris Lehmann (clehmann@scienceleadership.org)
Students who are interested in playing ultimate should wear comfortable clothing and cleats (if you have them) to Summer Institute. There will be introductory sessions each day after Summer Institute
Students Run Philly Style
Coach: Jeremy Spry (jspry@scienceleadership.org)
Students who are interested in SRPS will get more information at Summer Institute and/or once the school year begins
I felt very good; and, we knew that we helped our environment., One of the park engineers thanked us and said that it was nice of us to be cleaning the park. I feel like by cleaning up, we made our environment safer, healthier and cleaner, we made essential workers happy; and, hopefully, we inspired others to clean up themselves. For example, my six year old, younger brother also helped out. He went around the park with a stick, grabbing the trash, and putting it into the trash bag. Holding a public park cleanup showed him and all those in our neighborhood that keeping the environment clean is important. Involving young people, like my brother, in these activities, teaches the next generation to care about our planet. Perhaps, in the future,he can do a similar clean up at his school, helping my mission and making my idea grow.
Many organizations are working to help our city and country improve the environment, increase air quality, and to make their parks more beautiful. People are also trying to use solar energy, reducing their dependence on power plants that spread greenhouse gases into our environment. Another way to make a difference in the fight for our planet is by protesting, many people gather and protest climate change. There are many changes that will reduce our impact on our planet and help fix the problems we have already caused. There are also websites that people can see to learn more about this topic, and I think that many of these websites are kid friendly.targeting the future generations is important, because when we talk about climate, it’s their future that we are looking forward to. There’s also websites that do stuff like I did in a big group, clean parks, plant trees, and other cool and safe activities to help the environment. I learned so much more about helping our environment and enjoyed helping make a difference in my community with my family. Maybe you and some friends would like to help out the community in a similar way? Go ahead,and grab that litter!
I’m not sure if these have to be on Slate or not to count, so I’m putting them here in case they do. Song 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YYuldcuhY7AEnSjNz9cY-FMEbk8Kc-l1/view?usp=sharing Song 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12r71WsbHzExZC7l7pLynmni8IQcNwRjw/view?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_fql1CQncVvnM4_Wp09FyXL1A4ZzEcoMy9tL_0Nq7iQ/edit?usp=sharing
Section 1: Introduction I made a couple songs. Making music is something I’ve been curious about wanted to do for a while, and this was a good opportunity.
Section 2: Process I used Chrome music labs and Reaper to create my music. I didn’t know what my capstone was going to be until after winter break. I researched all of this by myself. Section 3: Reflection If I were to redo this, I wouldn’t have put it off until February.
In my previous post I talked about the history of wax cylinder records and why their historical value is worth preserving and I discussed the people who are interested in preserving them and why. In my Agent of Change I am aiming to continue to spread awareness of cylinder records and promote the preservation of them by continuing campaigning and promoting archives and agencies who preserve records, like the UCSB Cylinder Archive. I have also created an Instagram account that is going to post daily to raise further awareness for cylinders. The account will post daily and share a fun fact about cylinder records and share a daily cylinder recording from the UCSB archives, which will both promote awareness and bring even more attention to the efforts being made at UCSB. My further research and starting the cylinder account has shown me that people are interested in cylinders quite a bit, seeing as the account so far has 19 followers and the 2 posts I have done so far are getting likes and engagement. I am hopeful that people will continue to follow the account and some more efforts can be made in the future to continue spreading awareness. I also hope that I can make an effort to reach out to UCSB eventually and help to organize some sort of campaign to get museums to start preserving cylinders as they do other forms of art. My goal beyond just raising awareness is mainly to get people/organizations who have the funds and resources to preserve and digitize cylinders to consider starting collections similar to the UCSB archives. UCSB is the only archive for cylinders of it’s kind, so I hope museums in the future consider starting collections of cylinders. I have also found out that the Library of Congress has also made efforts to preserve cylinders, but I am unsure if these kinds of efforts are still being made today. The Federal Cylinder Project also has worked to preserve Native American cylinder projects as well, which is a great effort to preserve a culture that not many people have considered. I feel that so far my Agent of Change has gone well, but I think that I should’ve reached out to UCSB sooner than I planned to, because I didn’t expect the Instagram account to gain immediate attention, although I am glad that it has actually started to make progress so early on. I am happy overall with this project as a whole, since I have made a lot of progress with gaining followers for the account. I also feel happy that I’ve found a way to use one of my personal interests with music to create something to inspire change and help preserve an important part of history that many don’t care about. I also feel like with this project I am going to start my own personal efforts to preserve cylinders and start a collection. I hope that one day I can start an archive to store and transcribe home recordings of wax cylinders. I just need to continue to run the account and hopefully save my money to purchase more cylinders and technology to play them and preserve the audio.
My Senior Capstone is a website that gives future SLA students the blueprint for an SLA Music Studio. The site includes a homemade blueprint, products with descriptions, and the science behind sound. The link below will take you there. I hope you enjoy it!
https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/anslamusicstudio/home?authuser=1 https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/anslamusicstudio/references?authuser=1
In my previous post I talked about why I switched my topic from elephant poaching to teenage sleep. In short I switched because the problem of teenagers not getting enough sleep is something that I myself struggle with and people I know struggle with it. When researching sleep deprivation i found that around 87% of teenagers struggle with it so chances are you or someone you know is affected by it Right now I am telling alot of my friends and family about the topic and informing them of all the signs that can show they are experiencing sleep deprevention. I’m also talking to people about what the effects of sleep deprivation are so they know to get enough sleep and to share the same information with others. Stanford medicine has an article about teen sleep. It talks about one solution to sleep prevention, moving back school start times. This is only a partial solution though because more people need to know that it is a big problem and that they should be getting more sleep.For my agent of change I wanted to make a presentation and share it with my advisory. I decided to do this because it is an easy way to get the word out to a bunch of teenagers that most likely struggle with the issue at hand. Unfortunately due to reasons on my end, I was unable to present my presentation to my advisory. I was able to share my presentation to my class though. I think that overall I was effective at making change. My classmates all know about the issue so they can take action if they so please. I know that I have made change in myself as well. I have started to get more and more sleep so if i didn’t make a change for everyone else, i at least did for myself.Overall this project was extremely fun. This is probably the case because of how it is all about something that I am passionate about. With my first topic, animal poaching I really wasnt super passionate about and it didn’t feel quite right doing it for my project. I think one of the things I could have done better would have been actually presenting my presentation to my advisory. I don’t think that there is much left for me to do to make change besides telling more people. Others including you who are reading this can tell others about the problem and you yourself can make change.
In my last slate post I wrote a piece called “Born Different” in which I talked about me being different from everyone else in my family and what that felt like for me. I also talked about my brother and how he helped me understand that I belonged even though I was different from everyone else in my family. He helped me see that being different wasn’t so bad and that being brown in a white family wasn’t bad either. In my ongoing research something that I have done was make a blog post. In the beginning I was going to do an instagram but then I decided to do a blog post. I did this because I didn’t have too much time but If I can I would do an instagram post to have my research be more out there in the world. It would also show people what the police force has become well before even now but even more so now that they have become a militarized type of police force. For this to change I believe that either defunding or just not putting as much money into the police force would help them not be so militarized. Yes I get that they have to protect people but they shouldn’t be so over militarized to the point where they have pretty much huge armored vehicles, grenade launcher type things like the thing they shoot tear gas out of. Overall I just think they need to not get as much funding so they don’t become over militarized. I also think that the police put people of color in prison even when they do nothing wrong so that’s why I think that the justice system also needs to be fixed. Lastly I think that the amount of time for police that are trained should be increased and police should be monitored by a single overlooking type of government. Especially now with everything that’s been going on and that’s getting released right now out in the world.
When pursuing my agent of change I was thinking about what I could really reflect on and the most recent thing at the time was my brother’s arrest and what he had noticed with the police. In the end I decided to choose the topic of militarized police and well police in general. I did this because when my brother was arrested the police didn’t let him get a phone call. They took him to a prison facility where he was later integrated by the FBI and asked certain questions all because he was trying to help people who were being tear gassed at a protest. He was trying to help people by providing water with certain stuff inside to help with the eyes but when he was arrested he was accused of mixing chemicals to create something worse. When he was taken they also took his friend and put zip ties on their wrists but to the point where my brother’s friends hands turned purple. They asked to loosen them but they didn’t know how to. Later they were put into the system and transferred to several different prisons for hours until he and my brother were split up and put into different jail cells. My brother was telling me how he got put into a cell with a black man who had his back broken and how the police didn’t even bother helping him so the man was cold throughout the night since it was cold that night. In the end I was reflecting on everything me and my brother talked about. I decided to do the topic of militarized police which also went deeper into the funding of police. Funding into prison training and the actual police force. I was effective at making a change by telling my brother’s story to my friends helping them see how the police treat prisoners. Citizens. Black people.
Doing this project I felt pretty good about what I decided to do for my Y&TW project. I also felt pretty strongly for what I was looking for when I was researching. But overall I felt pretty good about my project and felt like I did a lot. Something that I learned about myself is that after doing this project I see more now that the police in the US are pretty much a second type of military. In a way, the way it’s going or was going showed that the police was becoming more of a military type of force than a police force. Something I learned from my brother was that after he was arrested he learned something from the guy in his cell who told him “don’t worry you’ll be okay youll have have a lot better chance getting out of here than I will”. After that he was starting to calm down and got out the next day but he reflected on that moment because he was white and the guy in the cell was black with a broken back and my brother wasn’t in any pain but was just afraid because of his interrogation with the FBI. Something that I feel like I could have done better with is going into more detail about my Y & TW project or maybe by doing an instagram post instead of a Blog Post would have been better. I think something that people need to do is know more about the police being militarized and spreading it but a lot of people don’t think of that when they hear about police when really the police are militarized in the US. So I think writing more or spreading more about the police being militarized could help people understand more about it.
My issue is Privacy Violations, by social media sites. In my recent slate post. I wrote about how much information Google and Facebook collect on their users and what they do with it. After some research, Some things that have been done to fix the issue I chose is congress passing an Internet privacy bill in 2019. In my opinion, this is a great way to make change. The only way these technology companies will change their ways is if we go the legal route. However, the bill hasn’t been enforced much, which is a huge problem. There is no point in passing a bill if it does nothing. India on the other hand, passed an internet privacy order this year, and they are really enforcing it. The Indian government is currently investigating WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, for breaching Indian anti-trust laws.
My goal was to inform people on what happens with their information when they use Social Media sites. I researched what type of data social medias collect, and how to protect your privacy from them. Then I wrote my own article detailing my research. I decided to write an article to inform people because I had no idea how much Social Media companies knew about me until I watched a documentary on it. After that, I still had to do research of my own. So I wanted to make it easier for people to learn about this topic. My article isn’t too long, it’s a short read that will make sure you get the gist of the problem and how to protect your privacy. After writing the article I contacted Mr.Jeremy Spry and explained my topic to him and the article I wrote. He was able to publish my article in the most recent advisory memo. If you haven’t seen me I’m right under book club.
In my experience doing this project, it was pretty eye opening how much data Technology Companiescollect. Something I think I could’ve done better is to have covered more social media in my article because I wrote about Facebook, Snapchat, and Google. I think including Twitter and Reddit could’ve made my project better. Link to annotated bibliography
My project is about how technology can violate your privacy. I was inspired to do this project by a documentary called “The Social Dilemma” it informed me on how much personal information websites and social media like Google, Facebook, and Instagram really collect. This inspired me to do my own research and now I want to share it with the rest of my class because I think it is important for people to know what they sign up for when they accept the terms of service.
This issue personally affects me and anyone else that uses social media. I as well as most people value privacy and don’t want a huge tech company to know absolutely everything about us. But don’t take just my word for it. I have multiple credible sources that also say social media invades your privacy and you don’t even know it. My first source is an article written by Aliza Vigderman from security.org website made by people with law enforcement and security backgrounds. In this article Aliza grades popular websites and social media on how well your privacy is protected using it. Google receives an F, they store your address, cell phone contacts, and use algorithms to determine which ads would be most likely to make you buy something.
After reading this I wanted to know what other companies kept a lot of data on us. It turns out all social media do. Especially Facebook, they record every post you like, page you visit, and every comment you write. Facebook then uses an algorithm to build an image of you. They want to know all of these things about you to target ads to you. Which might not be so bad if Facebook wasn’t so irresponsible with all of their data. Facebook has been constantly accused of selling your data to third parties. In fact, Reporter Aleksandr Kogan from Cambridge university was able to easily obtain the information of 270,000 Facebook users. Facebook even uses its users’ data as a bargaining chip. Companies favored by Facebook were given access to user data to better target ads and make more money. Companies Facebook does not like on the other hand we denied user data.
In my opinion, neither should be able to just look at our information especially since People have consented to give Facebook information not a bunch of other companies that make Facebook money. Facebook gets away with this because most people don’t actually read their terms in service. During my research, I took the time to read what’s in it, and you would be surprised what you consent to when you use Facebook, It is a lot of information. They do give you the option to limit the type of data they collect, but it’s buried in the setting. So you won’t be able to find it unless you know what you’re looking for.
In 2019 congress passed about a bill that would establish privacy requirements for social media sites Called the online privacy act. Though it was passed I don’t see any difference that has been made by the bill. I think if this bill is enforced better. This problem could become smaller.
Link to annotated bibliography and Sources: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yUTY_RQk9wWFZdp49LA-jQ88-rL2msiC/view?usp=sharing
In my recent Slate Post I talked about Smartphone Addiction in simple words is the overuse of smartphones. This can also include social media. Overuse of these things can have a negative effect. Some effects are depression, suicide, interference with how productive you are, and interference with your sleep schedule. You can even have a “tech” neck. Over time, the position of leaning over your phone can cause your neck to be stiff and stay slanted.
An organization called the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. Dr. Greenfield, who founded the organization, treats people with internet and technology addiction. He is also known internationally. The organization has therapy and workshops to help the addiction. At Camp Poconos Trail they have a tech overuse program. In this video, they explain how this program works, and the effects it has. They show kids what activities they can do that don’t involve going on their phones. I think camp is a great way to learn how to be off your phone, learn what to do in the meantime, and meet new people.
For my Agent of Change I decided to create a phone use challenge. Basically you would try to spend less hours on your phone for a whole week. You would set a goal based on the average amount of hours you spent the week before. You would do the things that you probably have been procrastinating to do. I chose to do a challenge because I was not exactly sure how I would make a change. I knew that I wanted people to at least try spending less hours on their phone, get them to realize the negative effects and that is how I came up with the idea of a challenge. A challenge is something people can decide to try and is not exactly forced and the challenge itself is adaptable to their average hours goal. I created a google form as feedback to see if this challenge was helpful or not but unfortunately I did not get any responses. My effectiveness is unsure due to the fact that I don’t know if people actually tried the challenge.
I enjoyed doing this project because it is an eye opening experience. I feel like this project sounds a bit scary because you are going to have to put yourself out there and it is not something that just you and your teacher will see but people out in the world will also see. Something I could have done better was organizing, preparing, and presenting my Agent of Change earlier. I think if I had not presented two weeks before grades are put in, I guess people would have tried the challenge and filled out the google form. I think what is left for me to do is also try the Phone Use Challenge and see for myself if it helps, see what changes I should make the challenge.
