Avi Shah ’21 Wins Middle School Geography Bee It took five tie-breaking questions with co-finalist Ashleigh Provoost ’22 in the third round of competition for Avi Shah ’21 to emerge from a pool of 18 classroom winners as Pingry’s champion of the 2017 Middle School Geography Bee. This contest is part of the National Geographic Society’s annual National Geographic Bee for students in Grades 4-8. Champions of the School Bees, like Avi, take an online test to determine if they rank among the top 100 students in their state. If so, they advance to State Bees at the end of March. Those state champions then advance to the national championship, held in Washington, D.C. in May. To introduce the Middle School’s contest, history teacher and Geography Bee coordinator Mike Webster P ’24, ’27, ’27 quoted The University of Vermont’s Department of Geography website to help students understand the importance of geography: “Geographers often say that we study the ‘why of where’…we are observers and analysts of space, place, and environment on scales from the local to the global. Geography is a multifaceted discipline that bridges the social sciences, the humanities, and the physical sciences.” Avi Shah ’21 and Middle School history teacher Mike Webster P ’24, ’27, ’27.
Guest Speakers from Celgene
Middle School Hour of Code On the last day of school before Winter Break, Middle School students sank their teeth into computer programming by participating in Hour of Code. An introduction to computer science, Hour of Code, supported by over 200,000 educators worldwide, is a central feature of Computer Science Education Week. For several years, Upper School students have participated in the event, the Lower School joined in 2015-16, and, this year, thanks to Pingry librarian Felicia Ballard’s suggestion, the Middle School jumped on the bandwagon (Ms. Ballard, who teaches Digital Literacy to sixth-grade students, envisioned Hour of Code as a natural extension of her class). Through the use of self-guided tutorials, students learned coding principles as they progressed through the activity. The involvement of Middle School students in Hour of Code makes sense: On both the Short Hills and Basking Ridge Campuses, where technology plays a central role—and where many students already know how to code— computer science is an increasingly important curricular focus.
In December, Jerry Masoudi P ’25, ’27 and Alex Reynolds P ’29 visited with students in Honors Biology 2 (Mechanisms of Cancer). Mr. Masoudi and Mr. Reynolds work for Celgene, a global biopharmaceutical company that researches and develops medications for cancer and immune-inflammatory disorders. As the company’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Jerry Masoudi P ’25, ’27. Secretary, Mr. Masoudi (who served as Chief Counsel of the FDA earlier in his career) spoke about legal and regulatory issues that affect drug development, such as patents. Mr. Reynolds, Project Leader for Revlimid® (a treatment for multiple myeloma), works with a team of 40 people, including medical experts, scientists, and data managers, to submit information to the FDA. He explained the “classical model of development” for potential new medications: research, discovery, clinical trials, and FDA review. Alex Reynolds P ’29. Mr. Reynolds made students aware that the FDA has approved 13 new anticancer therapeutics in the past year. What does he consider the strategies for success in drug development? Experienced people working on better ideas and better chemical combinations than their competitors. Prior to the visit by Mr. Masoudi and Mr. Reynolds, students researched and presented on breakthrough cancer therapies, giving them context for and questions about the process. WINTER 2016-17
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