The Newtonite

Crossword Answers

newtonite — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:59:00 +0000

Across:

1. Sixthmen

6. SOA

7. MacDougall

10. Fessenden Rink

11. Snow

12. Westonskitrack

Down

2.Tranchita

3. Lowergym

4. Blackburn

5. Sauro

6. Staulo

8. Connolly

9. DeSantis

13. Championship

Library to focus on mixing media

newtonite — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:48:05 +0000

In the new building, the library will be a Library Learning Commons, librarian Donna Johns said.
According to Johns, a Library Learning Commons mixes print media with other forms of information, with an emphasis on interaction.
“We hate to use buzzwords, but that’s the newest thing in libraries,” Johns said. “It’s using digital books, print books and movies together, so when you’re in the library, it’s a multimedia information center.
“For example, you could do a project on the human body. Instead of just doing a poster, you could first do some research. Then, you might choose some graphics that you found in an online book, or you might draw something yourself and scan it in.
“You can then create a website, making a brand new way of looking at a topic. It’s really about being innovative about creation zones within the library.”
Johns said the focus of the library as a Learning Commons came as a result of a worldwide trend in teaching and learning.
“The library’s role is changing,” she said. “Now, you can come in here to create content. In a class, you might create a wiki that the whole world can see, which can become a resource for other people.
“This is what you would do in the real world, and it’s learning real world skills for the 21st century. The world has changed.
“The way people get information has changed. People nowadays want to learn by doing. To prepare for a global economy, you need to know how to communicate, channel information and solve problems.”
The space in the new building will be approximately two-thirds of the size of the current library, or about the size of four classrooms, Johns said.
“Instead of the 14 side rooms we have here, we will have two classrooms and three conference rooms,” she said.
“They would be for students who want to work on a small group project or work in a quiet study area,” she said.
“We won’t be able to accommodate as many kids. Hopefully that will be enough space, and kids who just want to hang out will use the cafeteria, which will be a beautiful space.”
There will be about 80 new computers in the library, Johns said. To adapt to a smaller space, the current plan is to have rolling shelves.
“We haven’t ordered the furniture yet, and we aren’t sure what kind of furniture we’ll be able to order,” she said.
“Our dream library will be on wheels. There would be bookcases along the walls, and separate shelves that would have wheels,” she said.
“If you came with your science class, we could move the books into place. All the magazines and reference books you need could be right there with you when you’re with your class.
“We’re hoping for an opening day collection of 1,200 to 1,500 of the best-of-the-best new books.”
Anyone interested in donating to the library’s new collection of books can do so through the Educational Excellence Campaign, she said.

Presenters discuss importance of comics

newtonite — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:10:51 +0000

Comic books are a critical part of the media landscape, said Jeff Yang.
Yang, the editor in chief of the graphic novel collection “Secret Identitites: The Asian American Superhero Anthology,” gave a presentation Wednesday, Oct. 28 with the education and outreach editor, Keith Chow and art director, Jerry Ma.
The three presenters discussed the graphic novel and ran a workshop about creating comic book characters.
They began the presentation by showing a trailer for “Secret Identities,” to which 66 Asian American writers contributed.
“We pulled together the vast array of talent that is already out there,” said Yang.
He said the comic book was the medium of choice because “you are bound only by the size of the paper and your imagination.”
Yang discussed what “makes” a superhero. “The relationships they have in their lives, their history, their origins—being a superhero is about what it does to the character,” he said.
“Tying characters into history and their heritage makes the story seem bigger and more relevant.”
In this anthology, Yang said they looked at “untold stories of Asian American history.”
One story, Yang said, was of a Japanese superhero. During the 1940s in the United States, the superhero was interned with other Japanese individuals who were being held because of their race.
He said there will be a second volume of the collection, which will explore “the dark side of the superhero landscape.”
“We’ll be taking the stories of the people who are the bad guys,” he said.
In compiling the anthology, Chow said, “we all had the same goal – to put more Asian American voices in the media.”
The stories are told from an Asian American perspective, he said.
“We wanted to have a book that told our stories,” Chow said. “The Asian American perspective isn’t out there.”
He said Asian Americans are more often behind the scenes of productions, including comics, citing the creator of G.I. Joe, a Japanese American.
Chow also noted the importance to him of the presence of an Asian American character, Snake Eyes, in the G.I. Joe series.
During the presentation, the three presenters asked for an example of a superhero that an audience member had created, and Ma drew the character based on descriptions given.

Students visit from Burgos

newtonite — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:33:56 +0000

Students from Burgos, Spain have been staying with host students and families from this school.
The 21 exchange students from the Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente School in Burgos arrived here on Sunday, Oct. 18 and will stay until Sunday, Nov. 8, said Italian teacher Emilio Mazzola, the exchange’s coordinator.
The Spanish students spend a part of their day at North with their hosts.
“After the first two blocks, in which they go to classes with their hosts, the Spanish students work on their own homework for two blocks, and then they participate in Spanish class so that students in those classes have an opportunity to talk to them and get to know them,” Mazzola said.
In addition to attending school, the Spanish students also plan to visit Boston and go on trips to the Museum of Science, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Freedom Trail.
Last Wednesday, Oct. 21 and Thursday, Oct. 22, the Spanish students visited New York City.
Although it has not been confirmed, Mazzola said, the North students who go to Spain might visit some of its major cities, such as Barcelona and Madrid, in addition to Burgos.
“There is an application process for students to go to Spain. In order to go, you have to have a record of good performance in the classroom, as well as a good record of behavior.”
Students who participate in an exchange have a great opportunity to improve their language skills and increase their love of that culture, Mazzola said.
“First of all, there’s a friendship between the students from both schools that develops, a life-long friendship.”
“Lastly, by the time they leave, students often feel a connection or a sense of belonging to the city they were in for just three weeks,” said Mazzola.
Students from this school will stay in Burgos from Friday, Feb. 5 to Friday, Feb. 26.

Math teacher appears on ‘Deal or no Deal’

newtonite — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:40:40 +0000

Although she didn’t win anything, math teacher Audrey Prager said being on Deal or No Deal” for Teachers Week was “a lot of fun.”
“Meeting the other teachers was really fun,” Prager said. “I think we really bonded as a group.”
“Deal or No Deal,” a game show on NBC, ran five episodes from Monday, Sept. 28 to Friday, Oct. 2, where all of the contestants were teachers.
Prager said that she and her daughter went to an audition June 21 at the Boston Seaport Hotel.
“The line went on forever,” Prager said. “There were approximately 3,000 people there.
“We got there at about 10:30 a.m., and we didn’t get inside until 2 p.m., and we didn’t have the interview until about 3.”
According to Prager, 200 contestants were chosen as finalists and returned the next week.
“It was a more lengthy process, with more individual taping,” Prager said. “It took about 3 hours.
“At the end of the process, they said they’d call us in mid-July if they wanted to use us in the show. I got a phone call on July 16 asking if I would be on the show.”
Prager said the studio provided a hotel for the contestants in Waterford, Conn., where the shows were taped. All five episodes were taped Tuesday, July 28, she said.
In the game during Teachers Week, 22 teachers stand on the stage, each with a briefcase.
In the beginning of the game, a wheel is spun, with 22 corresponding numbers.
The number the spinner lands on corresponds to the teacher who is picked to play.
Each briefcase is unmarked but numbered and contains an amount of money ranging from one cent to $500,000.
The teacher then chooses to either keep their briefcase or swap with another player, but they don’t know how much money is in any of the briefcases.
Prager said she was never picked to play, but she was on stage in each episode.
“They might still call me again,” Prager said.
“It’d be nice to do it again next summer.”

Speaker discusses climate change

newtonite — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:07:39 +0000

On average, teens use the equivalent of twenty football fields’ worth of resources to live, said Rouwenna Lamm, an educator from the Alliance for Climate Education.
Lamm gave presentations about the Alliance and climate change on Tuesday, Oct. 20 in the Film Lecture Hall.
“We have inherited an America that’s about living large,” she said.
“But everything we buy, use and throw away has to go somewhere. We use up that space, too.”
In most countries, the population is booming, Lamm said, and these populations are convinced that “living well is living like us.”
“To live large like we do, we need a lot of fuel,” she said. The most popular form of fuel is fossil fuel, which is created when the bodies of animals decompose, Lamm said.
However, the use of fossil fuels can “turn up the Earth’s thermostat,” she said.
When the Earth is warmed by the sun, it gives off heat, which is stopped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; as long as there is the right mix of gases, the planet’s environment stays the way it is, Lamm said.
“The most important of all greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide,” she said.
“We produce literally tons of carbon dioxide when we burn those fossil fuels.
“We’re producing more carbon dioxide than every before, so much so that our atmosphere is filling up with carbon dioxide, trapping in more heat and causing temperatures to increase,” she said.
Although plants, oceans and other “carbon sinks” absorb some of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, they cannot keep up, Lamm said.
Lamm then showed a video about the effects of climate change and the consequences if nothing is done.
These consequences include more severe weather, like droughts and storms, than has already been witnessed in California with wildfires, in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina and in Europe with the 2003 heat wave that killed thousands.
Species are also going extinct at 1,000 times the normal rate, according to the video.
Lamm then spoke about what students can do to prevent these changes from occurring.
“We already have the power to turn wind, waves and solar power into electricity,” said Lamm.
“You have the ability to make an impact,” she said. “Simple things, like changing to CFL light bulbs, can make a difference.”
Another way students can make a difference is by “raising their voice” and inspiring others to make changes, Lamm said.
“If we speak with a united voice, our politicians will listen,” she said.
She also spoke about the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which was by Representatives Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California into the House of Representatives, she said.
The House of Representatives passed the bill June 26.
There was also a Senate climate bill, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, introduced by Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California in September. This bill is still being negotiated in the Senate, she said.
“I think the fact that they are seriously discussing what should happen with energy is important,” she said.
She said that the government is “moving in the right direction.”

Answers to the Crossword Puzzle

newtonite — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:36:04 +0000

Across

4 - swine flu
6 - Beals House
8 - Newtonian
9 - tigers loft
13 - bassett
14 - stark
15 - library

Down

1 - plowshares
2 - cold spring park
3 - newtonite
5 - main street
7 - feiss
10 - sanders
11 - george
12 - morris

Safe Rides to be all year

newtonite — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:52:57 +0000

Safe Rides will be a year-long program, according to Nancy Holczer, chair of The Newton Partnership’s Safe Rides Task Force.
Safe Rides is a free service that allows North or South students to get a ride home to Newton or Boston confidentially from 10:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday nights, Holczer said.
“It’s for those emergency situations where kids really need a ride,” Holczer said.
“We aren’t condoning drinking, but we know that it’s happening.
“It can also be for not only when there is drinking, but if someone is on a date and there is aggressive behavior, or if someone is in a car and the driver is driving unsafely,” she said.
Last March, principal Jennifer Price, a member of the Safe Rides Task Force, said Safe Rides offered a safe option for students.
“My goal as principal is safety, first and foremost,” Price said.
Safe Rides conducted a pilot weekend June 5 and 6 last year, Holczer said.
“We had close to 200 students signed up to be able to access the service,” Holczer said. “A federal evaluator contacted parents and students who were signed up to use the service, and the feedback was very positive.”
Holczer said that because the service is confidential, exact numbers of how many students used the service are not available.
After the pilot, the Safe Rides Task Force, which is made up of North and South parents, students, Newton police and school system professionals, met and decided to make Safe Rides a year-long program, Holczer said.
Funding for the program is part of a four-year federal grant given to The Newton Partnership, Holczer said.
Students must be signed up to use the service, but if they take a Safe Ride, parents will not be notified and the ride will be confidential, Holczer said.
To sign up, students can pick up in forms in the house offices, which have information on the program as well as permission slips, Holczer said.
Students under 18 must have parents sign the permission form, but students over 18 can sign their own forms.

Biodiesel class recycles grease into fuel

newtonite — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:30:15 +0000

Amaro: What is the new biodiesel program offered at Newton North?
Chinosi: What we’ve done over the last two years is essentially create this biodiesel program, which takes the cafeteria grease from North and South and turns it into burnable fuel. We can burn it in any diesel engine and in any oil-heating furnace. You can heat your home with it or drive your car. I drive my car with recycled grease.
Amaro: How do you collect the grease from the cafeteria?
Chinosi: We literally walk over and grab it. They put it in a 5-gallon bucket for us and we grab it.
Amaro: It’s just from cooking?
Chinosi: Yes. It’s from the French fries we eat here—
Amaro: —you collect the grease—
Chinosi: —and we turn the grease into fuel.
Amaro: How much have you collected so far?
Chinosi: Our rough numbers are, between the two schools, maybe about 150 gallons a year.
Amaro: How far would 150 gallons of fuel power the average diesel engine car?
Chinosi: With 15 gallons in my Jetta Volkswagen, I can drive 600 miles. When I make it from my own sources, separate from the school, it costs about a dollar to make. I only pay a dollar for my gallon of gas, instead of $2.70 or more.
Amaro: What is the class called?
Chinosi: The program is called Greengineering. So this year is biodiesel, and each year we’re going to add a new course. We’ll have solar and wind, and geothermal, and hydroelectricity; we’ll look at all alternative energy as the bigger picture, and all of the components for that.
Amaro: Where is the class held?
Chinosi: For this year the old electrical shop is now the Greengineering shop. In the new building, there is a Greengineering lab, so that’s pretty exciting. We do our chemistry work right here in our kind of makeshift lab.
Amaro: How long is the process of turning grease into usable fuel?
Chinosi: The whole process with the machines we use is about 24 hours. We can turn 40 gallons of grease into burnable fuel in 24 hours.
Amaro: What is the course description for the class?
Chinosi: The idea is that we’re setting up the whole thing as a corporation. You know, theoretical and real. Like the Tigers’ Loft is a viable business, right?
Amaro: Right, they make money and sell food…
Chinosi: Yes, right, well our job, hopefully, if we do it right, will be to create a corporation for Tiger fuel. We have a raw product, a manufacturing process, and we have customers. And there are teachers, including myself, who drive diesel, and we’ll be the first customers. There are also plans to put it in a snowplow, one of the big trucks in the city, or use some of it to offset the heating oil. Now, we don’t have access to enough to make a real dent commercially now. So we have only 150 gallons…Well, a few cars using the fuel we have now for a year is all we can provide. So we don’t have the raw material yet to make more.
Amaro: But it’s the start. And you’re teaching students how to actually go through the process.
Chinosi: Yes, it’s the beginning. I wrote a grant for the Newton Schools Foundation; they were phenomenal. They gave us a lot of money, and that really got us to that place where I could use the two years, I could buy some stuff, really experiment, bring other teachers in to help. We had a whole team of people involved, and everyone could slowly get a handle on, “What does this really mean? How will it work with the students?” It’s really just broken down to a big vision: the curriculum, schools who are already doing similar things, and the technical information.
Amaro: What are some components offered to students?
Chinosi: Right now it’s just a four-block class, under the guides of Career and Tech Ed. The cool thing about it is that it is unlike any other course, in the sense that we’ve taken out the specific content. This is not a chemistry class, this isn’t an engineering class, this isn’t a hands-on electrical class, it’s all of those things. It’s also economics, entrepreneurship—we’re setting it up as a company. This team is the board of executives; we have to learn every aspect. In the class, students’ natural inclinations guide them.
Amaro: So in a sense it offers a real world aspect, it gives you everything. Students who may not necessarily be talented in science class can come anyway; maybe they’re interested in mathematics, or customer service, or just helping the planet.
Chinosi: Yes, in the first few days we heard a lot of people with very different reasons, I’m here for an environmental reason; I’m here because I want to work with machines; I’m here because I like chemistry; I’m here for economics. It’s all here. It’s going to be an issues class, where we focus on this one issue, a notion of energy in the fuel form, and expand later. I believe that high school kids are more prepared and more ready than we ever thought.

Soccer game honors late counselor, coach

newtonite — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:41:37 +0000

To commemorate the life of Ucal McKenzie, the first annual McKenzie Friendly at Warren Field honored the late counselor and coach by playing the game that he loved so much: soccer.
“I think this is great,” his wife Suzanne McKenzie said. “We’ve got the whole community to gather together. It really speaks about how much the community cares about Ucal.
“It’s the most appropriate way to honor him.”
The event was sponsored by the new Ucal McKenzie Breakaway Foundation, which will run soccer clinics for ages 8-18.
“These clinics will have fitness incorporated into them too,” McKenzie said. “The clinics will encompass all the points that Ucal wanted to make.”
At the event, four scrimmages were played: the girls’ varsity team against current faculty and alumni, the boys’ varsity team against Cambridge Rindge and Latin, the boys’ junior varsity team against Cambridge Rindge and Latin and two club teams, Newton BAYS U10 against Valeo FC Blast U11.
McKenzie used to coach the Valeo FC Blast U11 team along with coaching the boys’ varsity soccer team.
After the scrimmage between the girls’ varsity team and current faculty and alumni, four speakers talked about their unbreakable connection with Ucal.
James Nelson, the athletic director at Ucal’s alma mater Suffolk University, said that Ucal had the “voice of all the young people.”
“His voice was the voice that brought pride to the sport of soccer, his family and himself,” he said.
Next Phil Song ’08, a captain from Ucal’s 2007 team, said that Ucal’s stress on doing everything the right way will remain with him into the future.
“Ucal always pushed us our hardest,” he said. “He always emphasized professionalism, and that will stay with me forever.
“His legacy will live on, it will live on in the way we practice, live on in the way we do everything in life.”
After Song, New England Revolution Vice President Craig Tornberg presented Ucal’s jersey to his family. The Ucal McKenzie Breakaway Foundation has retired his number eight.
Senior Ryan Vona ended the program with beautiful interpretations of the United States’ national anthem and the Jamaican national anthem.