46 The Williston Times, Friday, January 23, 2015
WT
school news
from the d es k of su p eri n te n d e n t k a n as
District vocabulary programs expand Academic Vocabulary As you know, last year, the district undertook an academic vocabulary effort across the three buildings. “Steering towards Success” is a program being implemented at the Willets Road School that supports the academic vocabulary initiative in our middle school. The goal of the program is to not only introduce children to academic vocabulary, but to also encourage and inspire each student to incorporate the new words into their own daily language. The Willets Road staff collaborates on this project school-wide, eager to make expanding one’s vocabulary “contagious” throughout the building. Each week there is a vocabulary word of the week. Students are encouraged to use the word in many different contexts; and members of each class have the opportunity to fill out a vocabulary activity sheet each week in competition with other grades. The symbol for the program is a car (steering for success). If you walk by the gymatorium you will see a poster charting the success of the various grades. Students have been checking the poster each week to see which grade’s car is pulling ahead. Many thanks to our home and careers teacher Michelle Santoro who coordinates this program for the building and for the support of all the Willets Road Staff and administration. If you want to view the academic vocabulary words for Middle School go to the district website at www.ewsdonline.org and click on Curriculum on the red horizontal navigation bar. Help your children to find ways to use the vocabulary words in conversation at home and help Willets Road, in partnership, to drive the car even further towards success! Willets Road Spelling Bee Champion Congratulations to Krittika Prajapati, a fifth grader in Lynn Flynn’s class. Krittika became the Willets Road Spelling Bee champ by correctly spelling somnipathy. She will represent the Willets Road School and compete in the 2015 Hofstra Long Island Regional Scripps Spelling Bee on Feb. 8. The winner of this bee will go on to the National Spelling
Bee in Washington, D.C. Congratulations as well to runnerup, Rahul Ajmera, a seventh grader in Antonia Laruccia’s class. Krittika and Rahul competed against the other Willets Road English class spelling bee winners: fifth graders - Emmie Keys, Lucas Schmuck, Andrew Kim, Ben Gold, Kate Seo, Emme Resnick, Daniel Solomon, Suhani Jain, Elad Yerushalmi, James Blennau and Bryan Schmuck; sixth graders - Michael Vitucci, Emma Leng, Kaylie Rosen, Anya Chabria, Deshna Chordia, Manav Bansa, Audrey LaMonica, Mia Blitz, Adam Aldad, Sarah Hassan and Kaileigh Fiorillo; and seventh graders - Liam Pereira, Ilana Nimkoff, Trenton Wong, Kiran Shaikh, Sahil Jain, April Garnock, Eliana Li, Emily Blumberg and Manveen Kaur. Congratulations to all who competed! A special thank you goes to Willets Road teacher Ms. Laruccia for coordinating the bee and to Willets Road instructional technology teacher Audra Beberman who emceed it. Good luck Krittika! Science Research Program Last week I highlighted our two Intel semifinalists, Arjun Kapoor and Kuan Yu. To find out more about their winning projects, go to: http:// www.ewsdonline.org/District/ News/12790-Intel-Semifinalists.html. This week I’d like to share some information with you regarding our Science Research Program at Wheatley, and the behind the scenes efforts and steps that go into our students’ completed research projects. Even before our strategic planning process identified STEM, (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) as a community priority, the district had taken steps to expand its Science Research Program. Four years ago, science research moved from a before or after school activity to a regularly scheduled class during the school day. We are excited to have the expertise of our science research teacher, Mary Alexis Blondrage who directs the Wheatley Science Research Program and teaches and supports the science research classes. If students choose, Science Research can be a four-year sequence beginning in ninth
grade. The ninth grade class is Introduction to Research. In this class, students explicitly learn the scientific method and do projects both individually and in groups. This is a preliminary opportunity for students to really delve deep into a topic of their choosing and interest. The Introduction to Research cur-
Elaine Kanas Superintendent
riculum includes a great deal of reading on all of the different sciences, including current events as it relates to science, such as in the case of Ebola. Current events put science within the context of the real world for students. For example, students recently learned about technology and science joining forces when they read about how a medical doctor created code for a 3D printer that created heart valves to use in patients. In grades 10, 11 and 12 students begin in-depth independent research projects. In grade 10 the projects are done in-house in Wheatley. In the 11th and 12th grades, students often find placements outside of Wheatley to further support their research projects, though some students remain in-house throughout. When looking for outside placements and mentors from the field, our students look for scientists doing research in areas in which they are interested. Science research teacher Ms. Blondrage explains that students, for example, might join a research team at a medical, science, or university lab such as the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and work as part of that team. The students focus on one aspect of a larger research project in the field using their contributing work as their science research project, or they may
do a stand-alone project at a research lab under the mentorship of a scientist with expertise in that area. Throughout, Ms. Blondrage supports her students’ work and guides them through their methodology. While some students may complete a project in 12th grade that they originally began working on in 10th, some students change topics along the way. As Ms. Blondrage explains, “That is the beauty of science research, that along the way something may be discovered that results in an evolution of the question into something that branches off into a new topic and search for different answers.” Our Science Research program currently enrolls approximately 50 students in grades 9-12. Ms. Blondrage explains that there are many more talented science research students at Wheatley and across the state and country, than the very limited number of national science competitions, such as Intel, are able to recognize. That’s why, each spring, we are fortunate to have all our research students showcase their work, and our senior science research students present their projects in a symposium, here at Wheatley. It is always a very impressive evening, indeed! To date, the science research program has enjoyed many successes with Siemens and Intel winners, as well as having several students published in professional journals. Look for Wheatley’s Science Research Symposium on April 29. Many thanks to our science research teacher Mary Alexis Blondrage, our Director of Science and Technology David Casamento and our science department for their key roles in supporting our students’ successes in the science research program. Update: Engineering Wow! This week I had the chance to visit a Project Lead the Way engineering class taught by Patrick Hurley, Wheatley technology teacher. As a result of the district strategic planning initiative, an engineering program was introduced this year at Wheatley to support our district STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) initiative. The class I visited is the first
class in what can be a four-year engineering sequence for those students who elect to take the full sequence. As described in the course catalog, students dig deep into the engineering design process, applying math, science, and engineering standards to hands-on projects in this class. They work both individually and in teams to design solutions to a variety of problems using 3D modeling software while using an engineering notebook to document their work. Students were adept at explaining their projects to me which were so competently completed. I was excited to hear that many of them are enthusiastic about moving on to the second class in the sequence next year. A national goal is to increase the number of women in STEM careers, and we are doing our part. Our program has both boys and girls participating, with many students of both genders enthusiastically looking forward to continuing with the program in their coming high school years. Many thanks to technology teachers Patrick Hurley and Tom Storck who are teaching the engineering courses this year, and who both committed much time and energy this summer to intensive training by Project Lead the Way and preparation to launch the foundational course of the Engineering Sequence this fall. Steve Simmons and the Simmons Awards As you might have read in the local papers last week, Steve Simmons, Wheatley Class of 1964, has again donated money for an award given to a staff member at each building, each year. The award, the Simmons Award, named after Mr. Simmons, was started in 1996, when he, in appreciation of the extraordinary education he, his family and his classmates received here, donated $100,000 to the East Williston Education Foundation (the Foundation) to establish an annual awards night. To date, 97 staff members have been honored with certificates and monetary awards, in appreciation for what they contribute to the education of our students. Each year, the foundation, a tax exempt, not-for-profit orgaContinued on Page 47