Third Spring Edition
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Inside This Issue Page 2: Class Schedule and The Rebirth of Spring Page 3: St. Paddies Day and the PSSAs Page 4: Earth Day Celebration Page 5: Spring Cleaning and Poetry Page 6: Spring Crossword Page 7: Hitting the Snooze Bar - aliquam.
Lucky Lockers Knights: 1735 Scribes: 1367 Colonials: 2600 Minuteman: 2558 If this is your locker number, come to room 100 for a prize.
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Dates You Just Might Need March 30: no school 31: Passover (First Day)
April 1: Easter 10-12: PSSA ELA 17-18: PSSA math 24-25: PSSA science – 8th grade May 10: Fine Arts Night/Poetry Slam 28: Memorial Day – no school June 1: English and science finals 4: math and social studies finals
Rebirth of the Ecosystem, A.K.A Spring Life can be dull in the winter. It’s gloomy, the trees look dead, and the holidays are over. Then spring comes and the ecosystem is reborn! The temperature rises; trees bloom, and animals come out from hibernation. It’s wonderful depending on whom you ask. Spring starts on the Vernal Equinox, or the March Equinox, where both hemispheres get an equal amount of sun. This usually happens on March 20, the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and the first day of fall in the Southern Hemisphere. Many holidays occur during spring, which can be fun. There are religious holidays, minor holidays, and holidays that have been glorified by the public. Religious ones are Easter, Passover, and Good Friday. Some minor ones are Arbor Day, a day for planting trees. There is also Earth Day, to support environmental protection. In addition, there is Mother’s day, a tribute to mothers. St. Patrick’s Day has been glorified and it’s meaning is
now different. It remembers St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Now, we go to parties celebrating Irish culture. It’s a change no doubt. Environmental things that happen are the blooming of tulips and trees regrowing their leaves. The best place to see tulips bloom is the Keukenhof, a huge garden in the Netherlands. You don’t have to go all the way to Europe though. There are many gorgeous gardens a bit closer to home. Gardens in driving distance are Hershey Gardens and Longwood Gardens. Spring is something to look forward to. It can be enjoyable with beautiful scenery and comfortable weather. There are many activities to do during this season, which can be enjoyable or boring, depending on your interests. Enjoy this season of beauty!
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PSSAs: No Stress For Success The PSSAs are soon and so you know what that means, stress, stress and more stress! But I’m here to tell you ways to not stress, and ways to make sure you’re calm. One of the ways I am going to tell you are about de-stressing through color coordinating your notes, another is to study outside, and also, you could take a bath, use face washes, or use smells to trick your body into thinking you’re calm. And finally, listening to music and what kinds of music can calm you. One way that really helps me, is to rewrite my notes, but in different colors. Writing something down helps your brain remember it. As we’re writing, we create spatial relations between the various bits of information we are recording. When you use certain colors it can help you to stay calm, and not stress, almost as if you’re just writing notes off the board in class. Some colors that help calm are soft gray, dark blue, lavender, aqua, pale pink, light green, or a pale yellow. I usually use a different color every subject, but you can use the same color for every subject. Another way I like to not stress while studying is to study outside when the weather is nice. I set up a blanket, water, and some snacks. Then I’ll go outside with all my study materials, and just relax and study. This can help because the nice weather can calm your senses, as well as make you almost mellow-like. There are certain kinds of music I like to listen to when studying as well as after studying. One genre I personally prefer is soft rock. Some artists/bands include Foreigner, Journey, Good Charlotte, Billy Joel, and Elton John. Listening to music on ear buds reduces stress and anxiety and helps your focus; if you’re listening to the right kind of music. Finally, there are some smells that can help you tell your body you’re calm. One scent that is helpful after you study is lavender. Its scent may slow down the nervous system, which relaxes the body and mind to reduce stress. Vanilla is another scent that’ll help. This fragrance is famous for being a potent relaxer. (In fact, people who smelled vanilla while completing a stress test had more stable heart rates and better blood pressure readings than those who took the stress test in an unscented room.) These are just some ways I choose to de-stress. They could not be the same for you but they do help me, you just need to find ways that help you study and de-stress. If listening to screamo bands help, then listen to screamo bands. If looking at your plain pencil notes help, then do that.
St. Patrick’s Day Although St. Patrick’s Day (known as March 17th in the Gregorian calendar) originally was celebrated in Ireland, the famous holiday has grown far beyond its breaches. The world-renowned holiday is celebrated in some places that you might not have ever thought of. Some locations include Singapore, Australia, Auckland, New Zealand, and of course the United States. St. Patrick’s Day or otherwise known as the Feast of St. Patrick is world wide culture and religious festival that celebrates the death date of St. Patrick (March 17th), he is otherwise known as the patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick was a minister who preached Christianity in Ireland during the fifth century. The legend of St. Patrick (that we all know and love) goes as follows: St. Patrick rid Ireland of “snakes” but in fact there have no snakes in Ireland after the last ice age. The “snakes” in legend may refer to the Druids or Pagan worshipers of snake and serpent gods. On St. Patrick’s Day many people wear some article of green clothing, some parties that feature Irish food dye the food green to celebrate the worldrenowned holiday. Some food that restaurants offer may include: Irish brown bread, Irish cream chocolate mousse cake, Irish coffee, Irish potato champ (also known as poundies cally or pandy), and Irish potato soup. Some traditions that are held on St. Patrick’s Day include parades, wearing small shamrock pins, and taking a pilgrimage to Ireland. In conclusion St. Patrick’s Day is fun festival that is celebrated worldwide.
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How to Celebrate Earth Day The purpose of Earth Day is to honor the sacred planet known to over 7 billion people. Yet, our Earth should be respected every day instead of taking a day out of our year to care. Keeping our Earth clean and safe should be a daily priority. It is constantly tossed to the side to deal with more trivial matters, when the only thing that matters is having a planet without toxic waste contaminating our fish and carbon emissions killing our ozone layer. The priorities of our planet shouldn’t be catching the next game, but rather catching the plastic wrapper in the wind and placing it in the recycling bin. It is not too late to start caring. The first step would be to educate yourself on the Earth’s issues, most, if not all, caused by the human race. Read a National Geographic article on ice caps melting or learn about the Greenhouse Effect. Information is power and with this power some serious difference can be made about the current state of our planet. The next step is to figure out what you can do to do your part and benefit the Earth. Find what you’re most passionate about and do something about it. If you want to keep the trash off the streets, you could organize a team to come together and collect trash off the roads. There is a need for me to address carbon emissions as it is taking a growing toll on our future society, as we know it. Most of the gases we release are carbon dioxide, which is generally harmless to the warming of the Earth. Yet, along with all the other dangerous gases, the earth becomes a heated greenhouse that becomes hotter every time we release more gases like methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases into the atmosphere. For each of these gases, there is a global warming potential calculated to see how badly it will affect our atmosphere. There are more than 2.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide put into the air every second. That is a billion tons more than the previous year. At this rate, our temperature is rising two degrees this year and even more than that thereafter. If everyone is able to pitch in and do his or her part, our earth will be significantly better off. Generations later will still be able to enjoy the Earth as we know it. Some things to try to make Earth Day count: Limit water usage Limit electrical usage Walk/Carpool Plant a tree Use less paper Limit hot water Pick up trash left outside Recycle Eat less meat
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Spring Cleaning Spring is a wonderful season known for the rebirth of the ecosystem. Flowers begin to blossom, birds chirp, and everything gets a fresh start. Why wouldn’t we want a fresh start cleaning out our school things? When you hear spring cleaning, you might think about organizing your bedroom or bathroom, but maybe the last things you would think about are your locker and school supplies. Lockers are just the place for your backpack and books to be stored. School supplies are just your typical binder, pencils, and books. What you might forget are the loose papers, stray pencils, unused binders, and empty folders collecting dust. Your locker might look like a war zone when you start to think about it. Luckily, there are a couple of tips that can make your locker an organized space. The first step to making your locker more simple and organized is to get folders, pencil boxes or bags, and binders. Folders are essential to keep your homework in instead of bringing your bulky binders home. Pencil bags are great because they reduce the chance of loose pencils and erasers in your backpack and locker. However, your pencil bags can begin to get very unorganized. Get rid of pencils that are short, have no erasers, or just look old and worn. As you know, binders are the biggest factor to a messy and horrific locker. Messy binders can lead to loose papers lurking in your backpack, locker, or even on the floor in the hall. Try to get rid of the unnecessary papers that you’re sure you don’t need anymore. This includes old schedules or papers from old lessons in your course. If you follow these easy steps, then you will notice a dramatic change in your locker and make your school days a lot less stressful. There are great supplies you can buy for your locker that are surprisingly useful. A magnetic pencil holder is great because you won’t have as many loose pencils in your locker. A magnetic whiteboard is very useful for reminders and assignments. You will never forget about an assignment again because you can never miss it. You can see the reminders in between classes when you are putting away your school supplies or when you are packing up for the end of the day. These locker supplies are very useful and are a great way to keep your locker, and you, more organized. Color coordinating your school supplies is a nice touch to keep your locker, binders, and backpacks organized and clean. Color coordinating is incredibly easy to do and makes your life a lot easier. Color coordinating your school supplies makes your materials look a lot more fun and vibrant. There is no wrong way to do this. You just pick a different color of your choice for each period. You then make sure that the specific color is on everything that is related to that subject. This easy and simple step in your spring cleaning will keep your locker a lot more organized and it won’t be an eyesore anymore when you open it. Spring cleaning can be annoying, but these easy and practical tips are a great way to make your school supplies a lot cleaner and even more fun. I assure you that after trying out at least one of these tips, your school days will be so much easier. You might as well try to escape some of the pressure of being a middle schooler and trying to keep your locker and school supplies organized. There are a lot of things in life you can’t change, but a messy locker isn’t one.
So Be Alive With Me; We have survived, another winter. And we will do it again, another day. But now is the time, to be alive. So be alive with me. These daffodils, they know, the goal of living is to grow. So be alive with me. In spring, we must bloom with the flowers. Shape and create, making way for the new. Destroying the old, of which has lost its purpose. It does not have to be spring for you to bloom. So be alive with me. Go somewhere, deep in the woods, in the reckless seizure of spring. Just be alive, with me. • Evynessence Brase
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Spring Crossword
Hitting the Snooze Bar: Do or Don’t? Most of us probably hit the snooze button every morning- even if we have a perfect, eight hour sleeping schedule. I mean, every once in awhile, a day comes where we hop out of bed without a pause, or we aren’t as tired as normal. But like I said, those days are rare. So, the question is, is it really that bad to hit the snooze button once or twice a day? But perhaps a more urgent question is, does snoozing actually make it easier or harder to wake up? Turns out, there are two arguments over it. The anti-snooze argument is a very straightforward one- most Polysomnographers, or sleep-scientists, agree that you are better off getting out of bed. In reality, it is more complicated than that. The most insidious snooze effect hits those that are already overtired, such as the insomniacs, and the teenagers who would rather stay up late scrolling through Tumblr or Instagram. As a popular ‘A.S.A.P. Science’ video explains, if you aren’t getting enough sleep, you’re more likely to fall back into the beginning of a sleep cycle after hitting the button. This is called ‘drockling’ which is the old, official term for drifting in and out of sleep while you’re seeking that extra ten minutes of rest. This actually kicks in the production of Melatonin, the chemical that encourages deep sleep. As a psychologist by the name of Maria Konnikova writes in the New Yorker, the very beginning of a sleep cycle “is the worst point to be woken up,” leaving you feeling like you slept poorly overall, even when that may not be the case. This is called sleep inertia, and it can persist for a very long time. To make matters worse for us ‘snooze loving’ people, by hitting the snooze button repeatedly, we might actually be training our brains to be confused by the sound of the alarm. This confusion turns into our brains recognising the sound as “just a few more minutes” instead of “get out of bed.” But, is snoozing really all that bad? Well, yes, because fragmented sleep is most certainly not ideal. One piece of good news for snooze-lovers, is that sometimes the alarm wakes you up during the deepest phase of your sleep, making that extra nine minutes feel like heaven. But you won’t always know what phase of sleep you were in, so in order to play it safe, avoid pressing the snooze button. 7
Newspaper Staff: Writers: Olivia Richards Andrew Margolis Christian Mahan Elowyn Crescenzi Ayla Perry Lila Howard Ellie Muskens Evy Brase
Artists: Angie Diaz Aby Betz
Editor:
https://www.google.com/search?q=spring&safe=strict&sourc e=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic25nAko3aAhUNSK0 KHR4MDZkQ_AUICigB&biw=1050&bih=689#imgrc=MBUnXV
Olivia Heim
Advisor: Mrs. Marcarelli
A special thanks to Samantha Eck for all her help!
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