STUDENT LIFE AT WOODBERRY FOREST SCHOOL • MARCH 2013
The Talon
STUDENT PUBLICATION WINNING AWARDS
Among Woodberry’s great traditions is its student-run literary arts magazine. Since 1949, the Talon has published poems, stories, nonfiction, paintings, sculptures, and photographs created by members of the school community.
Physics Without Limits
ANALYZING MOTION WITH ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES
Most classes teach students how to answer questions, but Woodberry’s Physics Mechanics class challenges boys to ask them. “When boys ask their own questions, design their own experiments, test their own ideas, and present their own results, they learn to think like scientists,” says course instructor Curtis Phillips. “It’s all about the process.” There are no textbooks or pre-set labs in this class. Instead, boys take advantage of the school’s sophisticated Noraxon MyoVideo and MyoMotion measurement tools to answer questions — and to obtain results that their teachers hadn’t predicted. On a recent morning, the students measured the angles and position of the vertical jump to see what it takes to jump higher. One student attached reflective sensors to his clothing and jumped up on a force plate, a specialized scale connected to a computer. Other boys used a video camera to capture the angles of the jumper’s legs throughout the jump. The instruments sent that data to a laptop operated by a student who had written a program to analyze vertical displacement.
Anyone at the school — students, teachers, staff members, or families — can submit work to the Talon’s review boards. All names are removed from the pieces, so they are judged only on their merit. Once a student has had something accepted for publication, he may join one of the review boards and eventually become an editor. Editors work with the writers to fine-tune accepted pieces, design the publication using Adobe® InDesign® software, and put finishing touches on the final magazine. Once it’s printed, everyone in the community gets a copy. For the 2011–12 editions of the Talon, three Woodberry writers won top Gold Circle awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for their poetry and nonfiction, and the entire publication won a Gold Medal. The Talon earned Silver Crown awards each of the two years before that. Year after year, The Talon is a source of pride across campus.
Physics Mechanics is a great introduction to the type of open-ended research the boys might conduct in college. Or, as David Daniel ’14 puts it, “In this class, there are no limits.”
UNDER CONSTRUCTION . . . AGAIN!
FAST FACT
Just because faculty and students have settled into the Manning Family Science Building doesn't mean Woodberry is finished with building projects. Construction on a new facility to house the mathematics department, a computer science program, and the community dining room begins this spring, with the building opening in the winter of 2015! WOODBERRY FOREST SCHOOL
TIGER TALES • MARCH 2013 • 1