_________________ WANTAGH ________________
FACES/ PLACES
s scene Spotlight on the evolving local busines June 2022
New Faces/ Places Inside
W
$1.00
HERALD
Vol. 70 No. 25
in • Excellence Health Care Awards
Becoming an Eagle Scout Page 3
Pull-out section inside JUNE 16 - 22, 2022
Honors for MacArthur's top two seniors nal for the Middle States Division of the Association of American Geographers. This month, MacArthur High Looney also has been involved School in Levittown will be say- with a number of extracurricuing goodbye to its senior class of lar activities at MacArthur. For 2022, and graduating at the top of three years, she was a member of this class are Valedictorian Sum- the varsity soccer team. For two mer Looney and years, she competed Salutatorian Anna in varsity track and Conway. field, serving as They were named senior captain for the the class's top two team and leading it academic students to two county chamvaledictorian and pionships. Looney salu when their also served as coweighted grade point president of the Sciaverages were calcuence Olympiad, and lated. Looney MacArthur was achieved a GPA of among the top 10 103.8, while Conway ANNA CoNwAY teams in this compewas not far behind salutatorian tition in Nassau with an average of County last year and 103.5. competed at the state Prior to being named valedic- level. She was a member of the torian, Looney received a num- National Honor Society, the Math ber of academic distinctions at Honor Society and the World LanMacArthur. At the 2020 Island guage Honors Society, and has Youth Summit, she won Best also been recognized as an AP Overall Science Paper, along with Scholar for her high scores on AP Oceanside student Matthew exams. Friedman, for a science piece that Looney will be attending Renswas published in an academic selaer Polytechnic Institute to journal. She also placed third at study environmental science. In the Nassau Community College the fall of 2021, she won the RPI Science Fair and had an article Medal Award, a scholarship that published in the Middle State entitles her to $30,000 of tuition Geographer, the academic jourContinued on page 13
By MICHAEl MAlASZCZYk mmalaszczyk@liherald.com
E
Michael Malaszczyk/Herald
SAlVAtorE MUlÉ SPokE to a class of students from Mandalay Elementary School, hoping to pique their interest in hydroponics early in their academic careers.
At Wantagh Middle School, growing food without soil By MICHAEl MAlASZCZYk mmalaszczyk@liherald.com
What started out in one of the Wantagh Middle School’s custodial closets has grown into one of the school’s largest academic programs. The students have taken an active role in hydroponics — the process of growing plants without soil, enabling any crop to be grown year-round ,as opposed to seasonally. Wantagh Middle School science teacher Sal Mulé had a passion for this growing method of food production, and kick-started the program 25 years ago at the middle school, growing crops out of custodial closets. As the program grew more
popular, Mule was able to move into a large science lab, with about half of the classroom taken up by the hydroponics, and the other half set up for lecturing. Mulé said he feels that it is very important to teach children hydroponics for a number of reasons, especially since the crops can be grown year-round. They crops also require less space than fielded crops, and do not require any pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. In Mulé’s classroom, students grow vegetables such as kale, basil, eggplant and peppers. They also grow a number of micro-greens, which are getting more popular in the market. Continued on page 9
veryone who inspired me is just spectacular.