Holton-Arms STEAM Spotlight March '24 - Issue 4

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Why You Suck at

and How to Improve!

Alex Cox and Rui Feng ‘26

to conjugate that one Spanish verb. Maybe you want to cry every time you think about French grammar or Latin noun declensions. Do you ever wonder about the science behind your failure?

There are three main factors that determine your success in language acquisition: genetic, environmental, and developmental. Scientists aren’t sure which genes predispose the brain to easier language acquisition, but a 2012 study suggests that FOXP2, known as the “language gene,” is a good candidate. Those born with mutations of the FOXP2 gene often experience difficulty in language comprehension. So could the opposite be true? Could those with a somehow enhanced FOXP2 gene be more adept at learning languages? It’s certainly possible, but the recipe for a “good” language learner requires so many ingredients that a single gene probably has little effect on language acquisition. Just like genes only account for 20% of what makes a “math person,” genetics may have little to do with your language skills in comparison to environmental and developmental factors.

If you’re exposed to any skill young, while your brain is still developing, you’re likely going to develop an aptitude for it. People who grow up bilingual, for example, show higher aptitudes for learning a third language. But, surprisingly, they are also shown to have better skills in their second language than native speakers of that language! The skills that bilingual children grow up with can help them reach fluency in any language they decide to learn, whether it be English, Japanese, or Esperanto.

Do you struggle in your world language class? Maybe you just can't remember how to write that one Chinese character or how (next page)

Environmental and developmental factors go hand in hand. Most bilingual children learn two languages simultaneously at a young age, when their brains are elastic and form neural pathways with ease. The “critical period” of learning a language, in fact, ends around 18. But don’t worry—it’s still possible to pick up languages as a teenager or adult! Christine Kulke, 10th- and 11th-grade history teacher, started learning Russian in college and is now fluent in the language, as well as 3 others. “It’s harder,” she says, “but not impossible. Do it!”

Unfortunately, 78% of Americans are monolingual, disconnected from the rich, vivid cultures that lie outside our country. How can we change this? Well, STEAM Spotlight has a few tips! Here’s our list of 5 foolproof ways to learn a language, whether you’re mono-, bi-, or even trilingual:

1) Immersion. Immersing yourself in your target language (the language you want to learn) has been proven time and time again to be the best way to learn a new language. The best way to immerse yourself is to visit a country that speaks your target language, but specialized immersion programs can be almost as good.

2) Speaking with native speakers. Whether online or in person, chatting with a native speaker can do wonders for your conversational skills. It’s also a great way to make friends and connect with people from different backgrounds! (next page)

3) Media. Who said language learning is all memorizing grammar sheets and conjugations? Spending 5 hours watching Grey’s Anatomy can actually help you reach fluency…if you watch it in your target language! Even better is watching shows, reading books, and listening to music originally made in your target language because they allow you a glimpse of the culture as well.

4) Consistency. As the brain develops, it reinforces the neural connections that we use frequently. So practice your target language as much as you can, whether it be on the bus, after lacrosse practice, or during class (well…maybe not during class). In the immortal words of Duolingo, even just 5 minutes a day can make a difference.

5) Perseverance. Learning a language isn’t easy. But the reward of being able to communicate with a new culture’s worth of people is unmatched. So no matter how hard it gets, don’t give up!

Learning a new language is a wonderful way to expand your mind, connect with new people, and make yourself attractive to employers. And it’s really, really fun!

We encourage you to take your language learning outside the classroom and build a skill that will benefit you for the rest of your life. And with that, we say goodbye, adios, 再⻅, au revoir, ciao, vale…you get the picture.

is in the pudding

Malia Humphries-Do ‘26

Points A, B, and C are situated in the plane such that ∠ABC = 90◦ . Let D be an arbitrary point on AB, and let E be the foot of the perpendicular from D to AC. Prove that ∠DBE = ∠DCE.

Email your answers to malia.humphriesdo.2026@holton-arms.edu for a prize! We’ll publish the answer in next month’s issue.

Potential diagram (there are other ways to visualize it!):

What is

Aleca Aukhert and Grace Curley ‘25

Seasonal affective disorder, also known as SAD, is a form of depression that usually appears in the fall and winter months. Although there is not a certain known cause, scientists believe it stems from the shorter days when the sun begins to set around 5 in the evening. There are two main hypotheses as to why shorter days can cause sadness and depression. The first is the trigger of a chemical in the brain. The second is a rise of melatonin in the body. Melatonin is produced in the body when it is dark out so, because there is less light in the days, more melatonin is produced in the body. Some symptoms people experience are increased drowsiness, anxiety, irritation, fatigue, headaches, weight gain, and much more. Treatments for SAD may include spending more time outside, using an artificial light for sunlight, therapy, or even antidepressants (Hopkins Medicine).

Seasonal depression affects 5% of American adults for over 40% of the calendar year (APA). Due to the commonness of this condition, many people have developed nonmedical ways to boost their serotonin levels. The first and arguably most “important” tip is to reach out for help; Help does not have to come directly from a medical professional, such as a therapist or psychiatrist, but can come from friends and family. Self-isolation often comes hand and hand with depressive symptoms. Talking to friends and family frequently about not only your struggles but also your daily life has proved most effective in patients affected by SAD. Another tip is to change up one’s routine by trying a new hobby or activity. A way to alter up routine may also come in the form of your diet through ensuring you are getting enough nutrients and water throughout the day. Last but certainly not least is exercise. Exercise helps to reduce stress and anxiety. Making sure you are staying active is key to avoiding SAD (NHS Inform). Living with SAD can be challenging, but by understanding the illness and taking the appropriate steps, you can limit or even eliminate SAD altogether.

Lunar Landing

Lucia Noto ‘25

In a historic moment that echoes the glory of the Apollo era, the United States has once again set foot on the moon with the successful landing of the spacecraft Odysseus. This marks the first time since 1972 that an American-made spacecraft has graced the lunar surface, signifying a remarkable advancement in space exploration.

Following this accomplishment, Mrs. King promptly informed Upper School students in an email. Reflecting on the event, she noted, “The excitement level during the first lunar landing was completely different, the first time was so special. Everyone watched on their black and white screens. This time most people didn't even know that we were landing on the moon again. But it is very exciting! After so many years we are landing on the moon again.”

Odysseus, a robotic lander roughly the size of a large refrigerator crafted by the company Intuitive Machines, based in Houston, made its descent into the moon's south polar region at 6:23 PM EST on Thursday, February 22nd. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop in the mission control center as flight controllers anxiously awaited confirmation of a successful landing. After a tense pause, Tim Crain, the chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, announced, “Houston, Odysseus has found its new home!” Ms. King comments, “It is wonderful that we are landing on the moon again, a real feat of technology.”

(next page)

While the celebration was tempered by uncertainties about the spacecraft's communication abilities, subsequent reports from Intuitive Machines indicated that Odysseus was upright and transmitting data. This mission, part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, aims to revolutionize space transportation within our solar system by paving the way for a new era of economical exploration. Dr. King believes that “It is useful to use both public and private funding for exploration.”

This lunar journey, though more modest in scale compared to the Apollo Space missions, signifies a strategic shift in NASA's approach to spark a revolutionary era where “transportation around the solar system…is economical as far as spaceflight is concerned” (Chang). Carissa Christensen, the chief executive of BryceTech, comments,“I think it is a smart thing that NASA is trying to do, which is to essentially create a competitive ecosystem of providers to meet its needs.” Also, by having multiple providers, Dr. King adds, "NASA is not beholden to any one provider."

The Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program (CLPS) equipped Odysseus with six instruments to help with reconnaissance of the moon including a radio receiver and a camera. In preparation for the return of U.S. astronauts to the moon, NASA is using Odysseus to research the moon’s surface. Dr. King thinks that the Odysseus landing "is important for space exploration and exploring the moon surface helps us to establish a stable base on the moon."

Only government space programs such as the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan have successfully landed robotic landers on the lunar surface. Commercial attempts by Japanese, United States and Israeli entities have been unsuccessful. Even though commercial missions in space have not gone according to plan, Dr. King firmly believes that "all attempts teach us something so they are not failures. Each attempt is a way to find a better solution."

While Odysseus encountered difficulties, its ultimate success ignites the human spirit and rekindles hope for economical journeys into space. With great expectation, we await the data and images of the lunar surface and the secrets it will reveal. The Odysseus expedition highlights human ingenuity and the possibilities of deeper and frequent space travel in our lifetimes. As Dr. King states, "Space travel is important for humankind in terms of knowledge and technology." Would you like to be the next astronaut on the moon?

Further Reading:

Highlights From the Successful Lunar Landing of the Spacecraft Odysseus | The New York Times

Intuitive Machines

The Reason Behind a Rainbow’s

Grace Xiao ‘26

You may know that rain and sun are required to create a rainbow, but how do natural forces work together to create a rainbow and its colors?

A rainbow is created when the sun “refracts” on the water droplets in the air. Refraction, as the freshmen in Physics may know, is the bending due to speed change when light moves between media. Refraction determines the angle of the rainbow based on the speed of change of light. ike a prism, a rainbow divides the light refracted into colors. A rainbow is made up of a continuous spectrum of blended colors including red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. They’re all different colors because of the difference of wavelengths. Wavelengths are the distance between like parts on an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves, a type of electromagnetic energy, are organized by wavelength/frequency on something called the electromagnetic spectrum. More specifically, scientists have created a visible light spectrum, which is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye can see.

The visible light spectrum ranges from dark red with the longest wavelength (700 nanometers) to violet with the shortest wavelength (400 nanometers). To summarize, we see 7 colors in the rainbow, because the combination of sun and rain droplets refracts light to create these colors. We only see these specifically because they are the ones visible to the human eye on the visible light spectrum. They differ from each other by wavelength measure.

But why can’t humans see colors outside of the visible light spectrum? We are, unfortunately, biologically limited. The average human has about 6 million cone-shaped cells in our eyes that receive visual input and color. Someone with a normal spectrum of color vision has only red, blue, and green cones. When colored light enters the eye, it’ll activate the color cone associated with that color.

Fun Fun fact! fact!

Further Reading:

The mantis shrimp likely sees the most colors of any animal on earth; it can detect 10 times more colors than any human!

Colours of Light | Science Learning Hub

How Do Rainbows Form? | Canon Science Lab

Why Does the Rainbow have 7 Colors? | Open Mind BBVA

How Do Humans See Colors? | All About Vision

Visible Light | NASA

Avery Phillips and Sophie Delonis-Vigier ‘27

What is Pi Day?

Pi Day was first celebrated on March 14th, 1988, by physicist Larry Shaw. The date, 3/14, which coincides with the first three digits of pi, also happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday. The first Pi Day celebration happened at the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum in San Francisco, and featured a circular parade and fruit pies. It became an official national holiday in 2009 to increase student interest in mathematics and science.

What is Pi?

Pi is the mathematical constant for the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In its decimal form, pi has the value of approximately 3.14 or around 227. However, pi is an irrational number, meaning that its decimal form doesn’t end or repeat. This also means that the exact value of pi can never be calculated. The first accurate calculation of the estimated value of pi is credited to the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, so pi is accordingly represented (since the mid 1800’s) by the Greek letter π. The name “pi” is derived from the first letter of the word “petrimetros”, meaning circumference in Greek. To date, pi has been calculated to more than 22 trillion decimal places.

(next page)

Fun facts about Pi!

There is an entire dialect based on the number pi, called “Pi-lish”, where the numbers of letters in each word match the corresponding digit of pi. So, the first word would have 3 letters, the second word would have 1 letter, etc. Someone even wrote an entire book in Pi-lish, which currently holds the record for the longest Pi-lish text with 10,000 digits. Here are some examples of Pi-lish sentences: How I need a snack, chocolate of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics (3.14159265358979)! How I love a juicy nectarine (3.14159)!

Pi is also a part of Egyptian mythology. People in Egypt believe that the pyramids were built on pi. The height of the pyramids share the same relationship with their perimeters as a circle’s radius to its circumference.

Pi was used to hide secret messages during World War II, where the Allies used pi to send messages between the US and the UK. They used the digits of pi to represent letters, numbers, and other characters.

In 1897, one doctor from Indiana decided that everyone should just round pi up to 3.2 to make calculations easier. He even went on to propose a bill in the state legislature! After some debate, the state legislature rejected it.

In ancient times, mathematicians estimated the value of pi by adding more and more sides to a polygon so its area approached that of a circle. Archimedes used a polygon with 96 sides, and in China, a mathematician used a polygon with over 3,000 sides. One mathematician even used a polygon with around 25,000 sides to calculate the value of pi.

Many mathematicians believe it more accurate to say a circle has infinitely many corners rather than one, corresponding to the infinite number of digits in pi.

William Shanks, a British mathematician, spent years trying to manually calculate the digits of pi in 1873. He found 707 digits of pi in total, but a calculation in his error of digit 527 rendered the following digits wrong as well.

This page is dedicated to showing Ramadan through STEAM. Ramadan is a month in Islam where Muslims fast. Sawm (fasting) is one of the five pillars of Islam, alongside the Shahada (declaration of faith), Salah (prayer), Zakat (charity), and Hajj (a pilgrimage to Mecca) We hope that with this information, you will not only learn some cool math and science facts, but also learn more about Islam!

Lunar Cycles Zahra Rasheed ‘26

Have you ever noticed that the Muslim holidays, especially Ramadan and Eid, always land on a different day every year? This is because Muslim holidays are based on the Islamic calendar (or the Lunar calendar). In this calendar, the months are solely based on the cycles of the moon. It takes the moon about 29.5 days to go through its phase cycle, so in the Islamic calendar, each month is either 29 or 30 days long. In total, there are either 354-355 days (354.36707) in a Islamic/Lunar year. As we already know, most of the world follows the Gregorian calendar in which a year is determined by one Earth’s revolution around the sun. Because a year is 365-366 days (365.2425), you can see that the Lunar calendar is about 11-12 days short. Because Muslim holidays are based on the Lunar calendar, every year, Ramadan and other holidays move back 11-12 days. This means that it takes about 33 years for Ramadan to fall back on its same day. So in only 16 years, Ramadan will fall in September! This year, Ramadan started on March 10th and ends on April 9th.

Dates

Alisha Agha ‘27

Dates are a fruit that are commonly eaten after breaking the fast during Ramadan. This tradition stems from the fact that dates are mentioned 22 times in the Quran, the Islamic holy book, and were also eaten by Prophet Muhammad. But what is the nutritional value of eating dates? Are they actually nutritionally good to eat after fasting? The science says yes!

Firstly, one medjool date (one of the most common types of dates) has more than 4% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin B-6 for adults. This vitamin is extremely important, being vital for “normal brain development and for keeping the nervous system and immune system healthy”. Vitamin B6 deficiencies have been linked with several cancers. A date is a great way to make sure you are getting a healthy amount of this essential vitamin!

Secondly, dates are an excellent source of potassium and magnesium. Potassium provides cardiovascular benefits by supporting healthy blood pressure. Magnesium found in dates helps many body parts, such as the heart, bones, muscles, and nerves run smoothly.

SUMMER SUMMER PROGRAMS

Katie Feder ‘26

The summer is a great time to explore new opportunities and interests! One great way to spend your summer is in a program or camp that challenges you and teaches you. We have compiled a list of different STEAM programs that you could choose to do this summer!

1. Georgetown University Biotechnology for Science and Health Academy

This is a 2 week course that takes place on the campus of Georgetown University. Students will participate in hands-on labs and experiments, learn from renowned experts and faculty, use biotechnology tools, and more! This program is arranged as a mixture of lectures, field trips, group discussions, and other activities.

2. Georgetown University Forensic Science Academy

Another 2 week course at Georgetown University, this program is all about forensics! If you dream about analyzing crime scenes, criminal investigations, fingerprinting, and profiling, then this program is for you! The main focus of this academy is to “test your critical thinking skills by identifying and interpreting the evidence as you explore the application of science and medicine in law enforcement.”

(next page)

3. The Summer Enrichment Academy at UMBC

UMBC offers high schoolers and middle schoolers the opportunity to participate in fun workshops and camps. There are a few different options, ranging from rigorous 1 week camps to workshops, all planned out to give students the best summer experience! There are also 5 sessions, allowing for flexibility in scheduling.

4. Terp Young Scholars

This program takes place at the University of Maryland. They offer a variety of college credit courses! In addition to the scientific exploration, students also get the opportunity to see what living on a college campus is like. There are fun activities on weekends, evenings, and the afternoons to give participants the full college experience.

5. Pre-College Summer Program at Johns Hopkins

This program offers the opportunity to engage with like minded peers as an academically advanced student at a fast paced college level! There are 2 three-week sessions, online and on campus, between late June and early August. In addition to the college-like classes, students can also participate in activities as part of the “vibrant student community”!

Alisha Agha ‘27

CL VERS

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!

Four-leaf clovers are a key symbol of St. Patrick's Day, so here are some fun facts about them and clovers in general!

There is a 1 in 5,000 chance of finding a four-leaf clover on your first try

There’s no scientific consensus on which Irish species is the traditional shamrock

White clover (Trifolium repens) or suckling clover (T. dubium) are the main species it’s between

White clover is popular for livestock grazing, soil improvement, and erosion control

White clover can become invasive, especially in lawns and pastures

Carter Thompson ‘26

ACROSS

1. The fruit that allegedly helped Newton discover gravity

2. The fourth, lesser-known state of matter

6. The holiday this issue was published on

7. The math class where some main focuses are shapes and angles

8. The most abundant element found in Earth's air

10. The city where the first nuclear reactor was built

11. Someone qualified to design buildings and supervise their construction

12. A powerful and luminous explosion of a star

13. The apt acronym for a form of depression that usually appears in the fall and winter months

DOWN

1. The lowest temp. that is theoretically possible

3. What the S stands for in NASA

4. A well-known female physicist and chemist who researched radioactivity

5. The planet furthest away from the sun

9. The product of an integer and all positive integers less than or equal to it

sky.zhu.2026@holton-arms.edu

yvonne.zhu.2026@holton-arms.edu

carter.thompson.2026@holton-arms.edu

malia.humphriesdo.2026@holton-arms.edu

maggie.shelton.2026@holton-arms.edu

grace.curley.2025@holton-arms.edu

aleca.aukhert.2025@holton-arms.edu