Newspaper

Poetry Slam Fest!

hfeldman — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:11:52 -0400

Last Wednesday, a poetry slam fest was held in the SLA Café. Two of Mr. Lehmann’s former Beacon students and b-ball team members, Denice Frohman and Elizabeth Acevedo, came down from NYC to participate. Both have performed at the Bowery Poetry Club and the Nuyurican Café. Elizabeth was on the New York City Youth Slam team that won the National Slam Competition, and Denice did a one-woman show at Dowling College. They performed a few of their numbers, and some SLA students got to show off with compositions of their own. The ballroom club did a tango, and Dan and Josh played some music. We must say, everyone was fabulous! Thanks for everyone's hard work in pulling this together.

Newspaper

Molly Tsongas and An Inconvienient Truth!

acampbell — Thu, 24 May 2007 09:19:03 -0400

On May 9th 2007 Molly Tsongas came to SLA to give Al Gore's Slideshow of An Inconvienient Truth to the whole SLA community. This was a follow up activity to the showing of the movie. Molly is one of 1,000 people who got trained by Al Gore to give the side show based on the documentary in the US. Everyone seemed to really enjoy her talk and asked some great questions! Afterwards our Newpaper team had a chance to talk to Molly. Here is our Q and A: Q: What got you interested in Global Warming? A: At my High School we had a Forest we went to. One year they decided to chop it down to build tennis courts. People loved the forest and yet they still cut it down. This made me realise that people don't always fo what's right. Also I lost my Dad to cancer which made me figure out that you don't take things for granted. Q: Do you come to many schools? What is your main audience? A: My main audience are communities in South East PA. mostly their environmental people. We try and convince them to get 200 people in their community to sign up for clean energy and then they get a free solar panel. The age of the audience is mostly 30 to 70 year olds. Q: What do you do besides the slideshow? A: I work for Smart power which is nonprofit and we promote clean energy. Smart power is the company that works with the communities to get them to sign up for the clean energy. Q: What do you think we, as a school, should be doing to stop global warming? A: Connect the dots. How do you contribute? realize that your laptops run on energy which is created from coal being burned. Once you identify your impact find ways to reduce it. but most of all raise the bar. We would like to thank Molly for coming out and giving the slide show to us. Hopefully it has helped us realize how much more we can do to help stop global warming!

Newspaper

2007 Philadelphia Primary Elections

hfeldman — Mon, 21 May 2007 16:15:49 -0400

Last Tuesday, May 15, was the Primary Election Day! Democrats and Republicans came out to vote for their candidates in the November Final Election. Although turnout wasn’t so great (about 30% citywide), the election went on. In the end, the Democratic candidate for mayor, which was the hotly contested race this election, is Michael Nutter. He will run against the unopposed Republican, Al Taubenberger.

Michael Nutter, Tom Knox, Chaka Fattah, Bob Brady, and Dwight Evans were the significant Democratic candidates for mayor. Bob Brady had the support of many unions, but apparently was running to take votes away from Tom Knox, the rich businessman-turned-politician. Dwight Evans, a state congressman, had the support of areas of West Philly, but didn’t do so well overall. Chaka Fattah, a representative in the US House, fared a little better, but still, he’s not our next mayor. Anti-Knox ads brought him down near the end, but a string of anti-Nutter ads came too late. In the end, Nutter got over 100,000 votes.

In other races:

Sheriff: The incumbent, Green, won over challenger Untermeyer (In my opinion, Untermeyer is a much better sheriff name)

Councilman:
   1st District: Frank DiCicco
   2nd: Anna Verna
   4th: Curtis Jones
   5th: Darrell Clark
   7th: Maria Quinones Sanchez
   8th: Donna Reed Miller
   9th: Marian Tasco

Councilman-at-Large:
    Democrat (19 running):   James F. Kenney
                                            W. Wilson Goode Jr.
                                            Bill Green
                                            William Greenlee
                                            Blondell Reynolds Brown
    Republican (five running): David Oh
                                             Jack Kelly
                                             Patricia Mattern
                                             Frank Rizzo
                                             Phil Kerwick

Other Races: There were a few judge races this time around, for the PA Supreme Court, the Municipal Court, Traffic Court, City Commissioner, Register of Wills, and Clerk of the Courts.

Also on the ballot were eight questions, on zoning, a youth commission, the war in Iraq, and money, to name a few.

Newspaper

SLA Gets Ready to Dance Again!

adunn — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:10:25 -0400

SLA's third and final dance will be held on Friday, May 18th in the Cafe. We are hoping for wonderful attendance at our final social event. There will be FREE food (yes, that is FREE food), great tunes, and good times. Tickets are $3 for SLA students, $5 for SLA guests (limit one guest per SLA student) and will be on sale in the Cafe this week.

Newspaper

Dr. Steven Squyres visits SLA

acampbell — Tue, 01 May 2007 14:31:41 -0400

SLA was very fortunate this past Thursday, April 26th 2007, to host a lecture by Dr. Steven Squyres. Dr. Steven Squyres won the Benjamin Franklin award for Earth and Environmental science this year. He came to talk to SLA as part of the Franklin awards week. He gave a great power point show explaining how the robots that are on Mars now were built, what they are doing there, and what some of the challenges were during the mission. After Dr Squyres did a question and answer section where we got to ask him a lot of great questions.

Dr Squyres talk had everyone's jaw dropped, everyone was so amazed by the work and the photos of Mars. The movie of the robot unfolding itself, the air bags, and the photos of the Mars rocks were just a few of the highlights. Another big highlight was the story about how the robot got stuck in a sand dune and they had to go to Home Depot and get a ton of soil to simulate the Mars surface so they could test ways to get it out. A highlight for Itamar Ben-amos was "the amimation where the robot started spinning around." Jesse Collins reaction to the whole event was "It was beyond amazing! It was so cool he came to talk to us."

SLA is very grateful for having Dr. Steven Squyres come and talk to us. We also would like to thank The Franklin Instiute for our partnership and making this great event happen!

Newspaper

Meet the Scientists

hfeldman — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:18:59 -0400

On April 24, twenty-five SLA students attended “Meet the Scientists” at the Franklin Institute. At the event, five scientists from the top of their fields spoke at a panel discussion. Schools from all over Philadelphia came to meet the scientists and ask questions. Included on the panel were:

Robert Dennard, PhD, who developed D-RAM, dynamic random access memory, which is used in just about every computer produced today,

Nancy Wexler, PhD, whose work in genetics has included discovering the gene responsible for Huntington’s Disease,

Merton Flemings, ScD, notable for his hand in developing the industry of semi-solid metalworking.

Arthur McDonald, PhD, represented a pair working in physics who discovered “that the three known types of elementary particles called neutrinos change into one another when traveling over sufficiently long distances, and that neutrinos have mass.”

And Stuart Card, PhD, who works in human-computer interaction, and had a part in developing what we now know as the mouse.

These men and women are all this year’s Franklin Institute Award Laureates for the Bower Awards and Ben Franklin Medals.

From one to three o’clock was a question and answer session in Stearns Auditorium. Many of the questions asked of these scientists were factual in nature, such as wondering how the discovery of neutrinos and their mass changed physics. Many of the questions were directed towards Dr. Wexler, on how she went about her research, and what was being done today to further understanding of Huntington’s. Some questions for Dr. McDonald asked about the experiment that led to discovery of the mass of neutrinos and how the experiment was set up and the thought process leading up to the final set-up. Although some answers from the panelists may have been a bit technical, their words gave insight into their fields and what the science is really like. Thank you to our partner, The Franklin Institute, for giving us this incredible opportunity.

Newspaper

Broughton Hall High School Visits SLA

eduarte — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 02:05:19 -0400

On Thursday March 29th, some seniors visited us from Broughton Hall High School in Liverpool, England, UK. They were here because they want to remodel their school. They came to Philadelphia to see four schools. Student Government had an opportunity to speak to them during lunch. It was a great experience; they really enjoyed their stay here. When they were about to leave they got very upset. After SLA they were going to go to High School of the Future. Student Government said that they were going to stay in touch with them.

Newspaper

Change Your Clock

jthomas — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:07:52 -0400

SLA's service leadership learning group took an extrodonary trip on March 9th. Service leadership learning took part in a great program called "Change Your Clock" that happened in the city of Philadelphia. Taking a trip to a senior citzen home in South Philadelphia SLA students took part in passing out flyers on fire safety and changing your smoke detector battery every six months. SLA students got to hear some really wise words from Philadelphia's fire commissoner as well as do some community service. All the students who got a chance to take part in this exciting experience got to meet some pretty spectacular people and also got a chance to be on the news. Service Leadership Learning has taken part in something so wonderful and there are more wonderful things in their future to come.

Newspaper

Earth Day

acampbell — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:15:39 -0400

EARTH DAY APRIL 22nd!!! What are you going to do to celebrate?

In Mr Sherif's science class we are researching different aspects of Earth Day. Then we are going
to produce a project about it to help promote Earth Day and Global Warming.
Also later this month we are going to be viewing Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"

Hopefully these two events will help start conversations and promote awareness on this topic. We are the next generation and we need to start acting on this. Sadly the generations before of us kept very bad care of our planet and we need to fix their mistakes! If we don't start now we will never be able to fix this. Do we want to be the generation everyone looks back on and says that we didn't do our share in taking care of our planet?

Any ideas on what we should do to help stop global warming please give to Student Government. (Hannah really really likes mail in the mailbox!!)

Newspaper

Congrats

hfeldman — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:08:00 -0400

Congrats to Jay Mukhtar and Alison Campbell for placing at their sports events over break! Jay attended a squash tournament, where his team placed fourth! Alison went to the Interscholastics for orienteering, where she placed fifth individually, and her team got third! Yay to them both!

Newspaper

Edutopia

hfeldman — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:03:03 -0400

The Science Leadership Academy was again highlighted in a national spotlight. April’s Edutopia magazine features SLA as the ‘cool school’ of the month! It’s a great article, so go check it out at Edutopia's website .

Newspaper

SLA Updates for April

adunn — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:39:44 -0400

Happy Spring, SLA! Now back from Spring Break, we are moving full-throtle into the 4th Quarter. Here are a few updates you might like to know:

Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday April 17 and 18. April 17 conferences will be held from 5pm-8pm while the April 18 conferences will be from 1:30-4pm. Students, please bring home the notices to your parents/guardians so teachers can schedule the conferences.

Report cards will go out prior to the conferences. Be on the lookout for them soon!

Did you know that SLA boasts the best attendance of the four new Philadelphia public schools? We're leaving SOTF, Palumbo, and Constitution in the dust! Go SLA!!!

SLA will have its Spring Bash in May, no dress regulations :). Stay tuned for details! We hope to see everyone there as it is our last dance of the year!

Newspaper

Elgg Newspaper

hfeldman — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:52:42 -0400

Hey guys! If you haven't been reading our newspaper blog on Elgg, you can take a look at what we've done there. Just go to the newspaper on Elgg! There are teacher interviews, school updates, and more!

Newspaper

SLA's Newpaper Team

acampbell — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:04:32 -0400

Newspaper