11 Grade/1ère students Bella Grant, Ella Jakubowicz, and Charlotte Burnod
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hree Awty art students Bella Grant, Ella Jakubowicz, and Charlotte Burnod participated in Houston’s 2013 OPEN THE DOOR art exhibit. Sixty doors were created by French and Texan artists citywide. Bella’s door promotes the “Open the Door” mission statement as it is based on the idea of a new experience, and the journey in which those experiences take us on. Ella’s door was inspired by the Big Bang theme and could also be connected to the dream. Charlotte’s door represented a non-proportional, non-linear map of both Houston and Paris, showing the similarities and differences between the two cities. According to the website, “OPEN THE DOOR stems from the idea that every new experience we encounter, be it a new phase of life, learning about a new culture, or meeting new people, can be represented by the image of a door. We can choose either to leave the door closed or open it and step across the threshold.”
11th Graders Tanmay Gupta, Nitin Ponnaganti, Sebastiaan Crane, Marco Monteiro, and Ben Penchas
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ive Awty 11th grade students Sebastiaan Crane, Tanmay Gupta, Marco Monteiro, Ben Penchas, and Nitin Ponnaganti participated in NASA’s Space Settlement Contest. They were joined by other students from schools across Texas and Iowa in the three-day competition. When they arrived, the students were randomly placed into one of four “companies”. Each company contained 40 students. Sebastiaan and Marco were a part of the Rockdonnel company, Nitin was a member of the Vulture company, Tanmay was a member of Vereinigten Flugfahrten, and Ben was a part of the company named Grumbo Aerospace. Each had to design a space settlement that could hold 5,000 people and be self-sustaining. The students had to put their plan into a 50-slide PowerPoint presentation and then present their design to a board of experts in the field (astronauts, engineers, etc.). Nitin’s company, Vulture, was the winning company. Eight members from this company will be chosen to participate in the global contest in June.
Anthea Lavergne
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ongratulations to Anthea Lavergne on receiving a Fund for Teachers Grant! Anthea was awarded a grant to attend workshops in St. Louis, New York City, Amari, and Crete, to learn audio theater production, electronic music production, and the art of contemporary oral storytelling to develop the listening skills and language fluency of English Language Learners. Anthea is a first-year teacher at Awty. She teaches computer class in the Primary School and she also coaches track.
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