Best of Eugene: High School Edition centerspread
Softball season will be a homerun success
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the Talisman a student newspaper
Sheldon High School 2455 willakenzie Rd., Eugene, Or 97401 vol. 41 Issue 5 April 13, 2006
High-tech cheating runs rampant
Students use high-tech devices to cheat their way to good grades by Emily Higgins editor-in-chief
Note: The Talisman staff does not advocate the use of high-tech devices to cheat or cheating in general. With the advent of cellular phones, graphing calculators, iPods, and PDAs, came the use of high-tech devices to reduce the friction of life in the twenty-first century... including test-taking. Yes, students use high-tech devices to cheat their way to good grades. It’s as simple as text-messaging a friend for the answer to number seven, programming a formula into a graphing calculator, or even snap-
Alternative fuel
ping a picture of the test with a camera phone while the teacher is distracted. “I think that Sheldon kids cheat because students have cell phones and [the phones] are easy to hide from some teachers,” said an anonymous student. Parents say that their students need to carry a cell phone to use in case of an emergency, and many math teachers require a graphing calculator, so what can the teacher do to stop high-tech cheating? “Teachers can take everyone’s cell phones. Also, I’ve been in math classes where we’ve taken tests without a calculator,” said the anonymous student. Teachers can also take the same kind of precautions they would with old-school cheating: monitor the classrooms. Aside from removing high-tech devices entirely from the classroom (students need calculators for math and most science classes), teachers could, with a more scrupulous eye, catch cheaters in the act.
But what happened to the old practice of writing notes on the palm of one’s hand? “[High-tech devices] are easier [to use] and you can get answers [by text-messaging your friends] once you see the questions,” said the anonymous student. What happens when the teacher catches a cheater in the act? The academic integrity section of the 4J Discipline Handbook defines cheating as: “…plagiarizing, turning in another person’s papers, projects, computer programs, etc., as the student’s own…” The Handbook defines the minimum punishment for the first offense as parent involvement and the maximum punishment is suspension. For repeated offenses, the minimum punishment is disciplinary reassignment/detention and the maximum punishment is expulsion. In the future, teachers can be more diligent at catching cheaters, and students can study ahead of time to plan for tests so cheating can be avoided at all costs.
Mr. Irish: Hunter Gray
As gas prices go up, more alternative fuel innovations arise by Dustin Beckett staff writer
It’s not news that gas prices are high. The fact is, the world is running out of oil, and as supply goes down and demand goes up, prices skyrocket. As the price of gas passes the $2.50 mark, people driving SUV’s are even more affected by the high gas prices. There are, however, many alternatives to gasoline. And all these alternatives are better for the environment. When most hear the word diesel, things come to mind like dirty, not biodiesel. There are different kinds of biodiesel, but the kind most consumers would use is a mix of vegetable oil and methanol. Not only is biodiesel renewable, but it’s cleaner for the environment than gas or regular diesel. Although biodiesel is currently more expensive than regular diesel, President Bush is trying to give tax cuts to farmers who grow corn for biodiesel. Doing this would encourage more farmers to grow corn for biodiesel, supply would go up, and prices would go down. There is also a way to purify french fry oil, but that’s not practical for mom who can’t spend hours treating and distilling fry oil to drive the kids to soccer practice Hydrogen is the buzzword of gasoline alternatives. Everybody wants it; GMC tells us that they are close to releasing a line of cars run on hydrogen. BMW is releasing a car next year that runs on hydrogen. Hydrogen creates tiny amounts of nitrogen oxides, but mostly water. Hydrogen is also the most abundant element in the universe, and is renewable on a practical scale, where regular fossil fuels take millions of years to renew. True hydrogen-powered cars are many years off, because it’s difficult to compress hydrogen into a practical-sized gas tank. Hybrid cars, while not an alternative, deserve to be covered here because some myths need to be dispelled. Not only are hybrid cars for the most part cheaply built, slow, and expensive, but the fact is it takes a staggering amount of time to actually start saving money on the gas tab. If a motorist is looking for a car that gets 50+ mpg, then buy a 1.8t Jetta, or any Turbo Direct Injection (TDI) diesel car. Not only are they faster, but there is the option to buy an ECU (the computer that controls part of the performance of the car) replacement that makes the TDI faster than many cars, and get better gas mileage. Europe has taken diesel to heart, and most everyday compact cars are made with diesel engines and SUVs run on diesel. Perhaps the most exciting and versatile alternative right now is FFV cars. FFV stands for flexible fuel vehicles. An FFV can run on ethanol or gasoline. Ethanol is a volatile corn alcohol. FFV has been around since the 1980s and has about 4 million users. But since it has not replaced gasoline in its 20 years of existence, it’s questionable whether it will ever catch the attention of America on a large scale. For more information check www.fueleconomy.gov.
Brittany Baker photo
Senior Hunter Gray is Mr. Irish and Homecoming King. Will he go three-for-three and be Prom King?
Disappearance of class rankings helps students When high schools don’t rank their students, colleges are forced to view students’ other accomplishments, such as SAT scores and community involvement by Kate Carlson contributing writer GPA, essays, and SATs; all of these are important factors to college applications. However, there is one critical factor that can make or break your chances of being accepted—class rank. Class rank helps schools determine class Valedictorian, the top ten percent of students with the highest grades, and help them determine who will achieve high grades in college. Sheldon does not rank its students. This is somewhat puzzling when briefly and arbitrarily looked at. Why would a school not provide students –
and colleges- with a helpful indicator of where they stand in proportion to their class? Although rank can be an integral part of a resume, it can be a less positive attribute if a student has high grades in a school where high grades are more prominent. There is good reason for this policy at Sheldon. About 5 years ago, a student at Sheldon applied to Notre Dame College. This student had a 3.75 GPA, was involved in athletics and choir, and was a candidate for a full IB. In the particular year that this story unfolds, it is essential to understand that there was a large amount of students with high GPAs in the graduating class. The said student was ranked in the top 17% of his class, but had gotten the highest score in the school on the SAT—a 1500 (out of 1600). A few months after he sent in his application, Carey Beneke, his counselor, received a phone call from the Notre Dame admissions representative. The admissions representative was curious as to why this student was only in the top 17% versus the top 10%
because of his GPA and SAT score. Beneke said, “I was mortified to find out that Notre Dame used class rank as a filter for their incoming applications. Apparently, anyone who wasn’t in the top 10% of their class was eliminated, so any other accomplishments were irrelevant! I was so appalled and I thought, ‘You can’t use rank as a judgment. We are going to do something about this.’ It didn’t occur to me at the time that other schools might be doing the same thing.” In fact, South Eugene High School had stopped using the ranking system as well for similar reasons. In a meeting of Sheldon Administrators, it was decided that Sheldon would eliminate the ranking system like many of the other schools in the district. Now, Sheldon students can relax, knowing that colleges will have to look beyond the numbers and statistics, and look at the accomplishments that we have worked so hard to achieve. They will have to evaluate students for their characters, versus the characters in their class rank.