PHOTOESSAY: Taking stock of Tinostock
FEATURES: A look into Pioneers’ obsessions
SPORTS: “Elle-god” brings basketball team success
THE PROSPECTOR CUPERTINO HIGH SCHOOL’S
VOLUME 52 NO. 4
10100 FINCH AVENUE, CUPERTINO CA
Chelsea Voss becomes Tino’s first Intel Science Talent Search finalist
HARINI JAGANATHAN
WINNING MOMENT | On Wednesday, January 26 in the quad during tutorial, an Intel reprsentative presented senior Chelsea Voss with a giant “boarding pass” and congratulated her on becoming a finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search. Voss ‘ mother looks on proudly as Voss is recognized for her work.
HARINI JAGANATHAN news editor
W
hen Chelsea Voss turned sixteen a year ago, she did not receive a car from her parents or have a large party. She received a microscope. Voss’ passion for science does not stop at her love for looking at leaves and mushrooms under the lens of a microscope, but has led her to success in highly esteemed science competitions. Most recently, Voss was selected as a finalist in the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search. This was the first time in history that a Tino student made it not only to the semifinals, but also
to the finals. The Intel Science Talent Search is widely recognized as one of the most prestigious science competitions for high school students. The competition recognized 300 seniors as semifinalists and 40 as finalists, including ten others from California. Semifinalists won $1,000, and finalists fly to Washington D.C. to display their work to the public and to compete for a $100,000 grand prize after a week- long judging process. Winners will be announced on March 15. Voss submitted an application and research paper detailing the see INTEL FINALIST, pg 2
FEBRUARY 11, 2011
New online resource for student research MADHURI SATHISH features assistant
The library’s newest database subscription, purchased by librarian Pat Accorinti, is Journal Storage ( JSTOR), a digital archive of articles from over 1,000 academic journals. These journals span a broad variety of topics in many fields, including literature and history. This plethora of subject matter permits independent researchers to dive deeper into the information they seek and provides students with the opportunity to take their research to a more advanced level. Said Accorinti, “[ JSTOR is more useful] if you’re doing extensive research and you have more time, [or] you have a whole team that is looking at the information.” Accorinti explained that the Lynbrook librarian, Maria Jackson, gave her the idea to subscribe to JSTOR last year, but she actually made the decision to do so this year, when the American Literature Honors classes were doing a mock trial about Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and were in desperate need of evidence. At the end of this year, Accorinti will decide whether or not to keep JSTOR based on how proficiently it has been used and on the state of the budget. Junior Anusha Ramakuri, who used JSTOR for the Huckleberry Finn trial, found it useful because it provided her with articles about JSTOR by the numbers: experts 1,289 Journals who had researc h ed 53 Disciplines the book themselves. Ramakuri 6,361,555 Articles COMPILED BY MADHURI SATHISH said that she found articles about most topics, all of which contained reliable information. According to World History teacher Kyle see ONLINE DATABASE RESOURCE, pg 2
Lack of student vigilance begets traffic problems REGINA HONG editor-in-chief VIRENA GALOTRA in-depth assistant
JAMIN SHIH
WEDNESDAY MORNING | A student steers through traffic on his bike as a car noses out of the staff parking lot.
On the morning of Friday, January 14, junior Jeffrey Ding was hit while riding his bike to school. He was driving past the bus circle and did not see a car nose out of the driveway, according to assistant principal Andy Walczak. “It was more like the kid hit the car than the car hit the kid,” said Walczak. According to student conduct specialist Jerry Sanchez, bikers often believe that they should follow pedestrian laws when they should be abiding by vehicle laws. They frequently think they have the right of way. Students often bike with headphones in their ears and are consequently unable to hear other drivers and their warnings as they speed through the morning traffic. Said Sanchez, “You can get into a trance like television.” Although Sanchez acknowledges that it could get boring to
bike to school without music, he says it is important to keep focused on the road without getting too distracted. But the student bikers are not always the ones at fault. Drivers need to be cautious as well. Just as bikers can be distracted by loud music, student drivers are often inattentive and careless, especially in the school parking lot. In the past, there have been several incidents in the parking lot because of students’ immature decisions. “It is probably not a good idea to give your girlfriend driving lessons or to practice your fishtails in the parking lot during school hours,” said Sanchez. Such reckless driving can easily hurt others, which is what happened around 3 p.m. on January 26. As junior Jillian Wolgast was biking home on Finch Avenue, she was hit while making a turn. Although it was her right of way, the driver failed to notice her and kept driving. Wolgast’s bike was hit from behind she hit the street headfirst. She was uninjured, but her cell phone was crushed by the car. What surprised her was the driver lacked concern and drove see TRAFFIC ISSUES, pg 2