Pizza Anyone?

There is a huge focus on authenticity when it comes to education, and you can’t get any more authentic than high schoolers and their connection to pizza.  So why not build a brick oven? Our masonry class did just that.

When constructing a project of this magnitude there are several factors to take into consideration – the two largest challenges being the overall weight of the brick oven and the structural integrity of the arch. Traditionally bricks are laid and held in place with mortar to prevent them from shifting.  Not in a brick oven – no mortar equates to no grit in your pizza. Using a wooden arch as a scaffolding, the bricks are laid at such an angle that when the support is removed they remain in place – defying gravity. Careful calculations and planning ensured we will be enjoying pizza at the Academies of Loudoun for years to come.

Prior to baking the first pie the oven will need to be fired at least three times, allowing the bricks to cure and any residual dust to be burnt off. Reaching temperatures up over 1000°, that inaugural pizza cannot be left unattended; it only takes a minute for pizza perfection.

Pictured below are students Jackson Donahue and Logan McKinney with the finished product.

Age of the Chicken

The age of man.  How will we be remembered?  Sometime in the future, long after we are gone, researchers at the University of Leicester predict our rotisserie chicken bones will be all that is left behind to mark our existence on the geological timescale.  How exactly did they calculate this to be our defining moment?  The current epoch, the Anthropocene, began in the 1950s, which the researchers argue is when man started to have a lasting impact on the planet. They then investigated what they felt would be the biggest indicator of our time on the planet through the lens of largest change (evolution) and most remains (fossils).

Previous fossil records began in the Cambrian period (roughly 550 million years ago) when organisms developed hard shells, and ever since then each new epoch and era was marked by a key species indicating a change had occurred (try to visualize the model with the trilobites, dinosaurs, and ice age mammals from your early earth science classes). Currently there are 21 billion chickens in existence worldwide, with roughly 3 times that being consumed annually. With this scale it’s easy to see why these researchers are ready to call this the Age of the Chicken – nothing else exists to this quantity. Add in the traditional landfill model, and the normally brittle bones of the chicken are not subject to decay, preserving them nicely for future generations.

Another reason the scientists argue that chickens may be a good marker for our generation is due to the changes we have done to the species through domestication.  There was a large push starting in the 1940’s for meatier birds which lead to massive breeding efforts. In addition, there is a current push for designer birds (chickens are becoming increasingly popular pets) which have led to many different cross-breeds. This has created a huge change in the bone structure, genetics, and skeleton of the modern-day chicken.

Knapton, S. (2018, December 12). Age of the chicken: why the Anthropocene will be geologically egg-                  ceptional. The Telegraph. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

The Curious Case of Percival Wright

It was 10 AM when Dr. Browning watched the cadaver disappear into a metal tube.

Ten hours later, she was having dinner with him.

“So, what it like?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly.

“Which part?” the former-cadaver in question, Percival Wright, teased. “The dying part, the being dead part, or the coming back to life part?”

“All of it!” Dr. Browning grinned. “Your experience is remarkable.”

“You know, all the details are already in the report Dr. Metrich wrote. Asked me every question under the sun. And wrote down every answer.” Percival shrugged tiredly. Already, fatigue was wearing him down.

“I understand, but I would also like to collect information firsthand.” She smiled. “Excited to get back home?”

Percival nodded eagerly. “My girlfriend. She’ll be so excited to see me. Does she know I’m not dead?”

“She was the one who volunteered you, so she’s most likely been informed.” Dr. Browning looked down at her plate.

Percival’s face lit up. He reached into his pocket, presumably to get his phone, but looked confused when he came up empty-handed.

“Your phone was destroyed in the accident,” she explained.

Percival nodded slowly. “Dr. Metrich said my brother was driving?”

Dr. Browning held back a sigh; of course, Metrich would use the same cause of death each time. Constraints mattered, even if they were dull.

“You know, it’s quite strange. I … I don’t remember much of anything, but whenever someone says something, it feels like it clicks and makes sense.” He looked stricken for a moment. “I can’t remember my girlfriend’s name.”

“Maria,” she supplied.

“That sounds right, but … would it really matter what you told me?” Percival’s fingers danced on the table, making a weak attempt to mask his heavy breathing.

Dr. Browning cocked her head to the side, observing the way Percival’s eyelids seemed to be drooping, despite the fury that swept through the rest of him. “Is everything alright, Mr. Wright?”

“Nothing should make sense, but it does!” He stood up suddenly. “You – “

The table rattled as he fell against it.

Dr. Browning sighed as she watched the man collapse to the floor.

Fourteen hours later, Dr. Browning watched Percival disappear into the metal tube.

Weekly Review – January 7-11

by Claire McGuinness

We are now two weeks into the new year after our winter break, and the Academies is moving full steam ahead. On Monday and Tuesday, Telos Corporation CEO John Wood gave presentations on the internships that will be offered through Telos over the summer. The Virginia National Guard spoke on Monday with students interested in learning more about what being a member of the guard entails. Wednesday saw the visit from the United States Army for all those interested in pursuing a career in this branch of the military. Tours were given every day this week to students who are considering applying to the Academies from Dominion, Riverside, Tuscarora, Potomac Falls, and Woodgrove High Schools.

RoboLoCo Meets to Start Preparing for the FIRST Robotics Competition

The kick-off meeting for the RoboLoCo robotics team was held this past Saturday at the Academies. The team is made up primarily of students from the Academies but also from local high schools and even a few are home schooled students. The team of about 50 students will compete soon in the FIRST Robotics Competition, known informally as “the Ultimate Sport for the Mind.” FIRST is an acronym meaning “For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology.”

The competition rules only allow for a limited number of resources to be used by each team to build a robot, and this must be accomplished during the “Build Season,” an intense six-week period. The teams of students are challenged to raise funds, design a team “brand,” hone teamwork skills, and build and program industrial-size robots to play a difficult field game against like-minded competitors.

At the first meeting on Saturday, the RoboLoCo team learned via video release this season’s Challenge. This year’s theme is “Deep Space.” Each robot will be challenged with picking up 13” bouncy balls and then delivering them to and loading them into rockets. The robot will also need to install a panel to keep the bouncy balls in the rocket. Finally, the robot must climb onto one of three levels of platforms for extra points. The RoboLoCo team is already at work now with designing their robot and figuring out how it will accomplish all that it needs to in order to beat out the competition.

Mr. Mike Tomlinson and Mr. Rick Sarr are on board to guide the RoboLoCo team hopefully to the world championship tournament. First, though, the team must compete and triumph within the Chesapeake Division, which fields teams from Maryland, Virginia and DC, about 100 -200 teams in all.

One of the cool things about the FIRST Robotics Competition is that it welcomes all skill levels, technical or non-technical. Teams will need all kinds of skill to succeed in this competition, including programming, electronics, metalworking, graphic design, web creation, public speaking, videography, and many more.

Copyrighted Works Will Enter the Public Domain for the First Time in More Than 20 Years

When the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, a lot more happened than simply fireworks and staying up late. Along with the dropping of balloons came the release of all copyrighted works first published in the United States in 1923. The public domain has been frozen in time these last 20 years, and suddenly we’ve had an epic thaw.  This release on what is informally known as “Public Domain Day” is set to have a huge impact on our culture and creativity.

So, why has there been a bizarre 20 years since the copyright expired on works published in 1922 and the expiration of works published in 1923?

You can blame Mickey Mouse. At the urging of Disney and others, Congress passed in 1998 the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which added 20 years to the standard copyright term of 75 years. Thus, this recent release of copyrighted work from 1923 is the first release in 20 years, and the first of its kind in the digital age since the last release in 1998, a time which predates Google.

What this means is that the Internet Archive, Google Books and HathiTrust will now make tens of thousands of books digitally available from 1923, with more to follow. They and others will also add new content to newspapers, magazines, movies and other materials. Going forward now, every January 1st will reveal long-overlooked works from the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, World War II and beyond. The newly released works will potentially change our understanding of these years.

Sample works from 1923 that have now been released?

  • “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost
  • “The Vanishing American” in Ladies Home Journal by Zane Grey (one of the first literary critiques of the treatment of Native Americans)
  • The World Crisis by Winston Churchill
  • A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House by Jessie Conrad (a peek into the life of author Joseph Conrad via his wife’s recipe collection)
  • The Chip Woman’s Fortune by Willis Richardson (the first drama by an African-American author produced on Broadway

 

SOURCES

Fleishman, G. (2019, January). For the first time in more than 20 years, copyrighted works will enter the public domain. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/first-time-20-years-copyrighted-works-enter-public-domain-180971016/

Holmes, H. (2018, December 31). 2019 will gift us with a huge release of copyrighted works entering the public domain. Retrieved from https://observer.com/2018/12/2019-copyright-works-entering-public-domain/

2018 MacArthur Genius Grants

What do a painter, an economist, a pastor, a planetary scientist and a dancer have in common? They are all among the recipients of this year’s 25 “genius grants” awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Each winner will receive $625,000 over a five year period. The Chicago-based foundation has awarded these grants each year since 1981 to help further the pursuits of people who have shown creativity and outstanding talent, such as:

Dominique Morisseau,40, playwright

Morisseau is a NYC-based playwright who has taken the theater world by storm with her Detroit-set plays which examine “the intersection of choice and circumstance in works that portray individuals and communities grappling with economic and social change.”

Okwui Okpokwasili, 46, choreographer and performer

Okpokwasili is a NYC-based choreographer whose multidisciplinary pieces “draw viewers into the interior lives of women of color.

Lisa Parks, 51, media scholar

Parks is a media scholar at MIT studying the impact of information technologies as they spread across the globe.

Livia S. Eberlin, 32, analytical chemist

Eberlin is an analytical chemist at the University of Texas who uses mass spectrometry to “differentiate more quickly and accurately diseased from healthy tissues during surgery.”

Deborah Estrin, 58, computer scientist

Estrin is a computer science professor at Cornell Tech who is working to put the “small data” gathered in our digital lives to use in improving, for example, personal health management.

Amy Finklestein, 44, health economist

Finklestein is a MIT health economist doing novel research to show “hidden complexities” in health care and to suggest future fixes.

Gregg Gonsalves, 54, epidemiologist and global health advocate

“Working at the intersection of human rights and public health research and practice to address inequities in global health.”

Clifford Brangwynne, 40, biophysical engineer

Brangwynne is a Princeton biophysical engineer who studies cellular compartmentalization. His work has the potential “to shed light on biochemical malfunctions that can lead to disease.”

Allan Sly, 36, mathematician

Sly is a Princeton mathematician “applying probability theory to resolve long-standing problems in statistical physics and computer science.”

Sarah T. Stewart, 45, planetary scientist

Stewart is a planetary scientist at the University of California at Davis “advancing new theories of how celestial collusions give birth to planets and their natural satellites, such as the Earth and Moon.”

William J. Barber II, 55, pastor

A pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC, Barber has led “Moral Monday” marches outside the state capitol to advocate for causes including LGBTQ rights and voter enfranchisement.

Titus Kaphar, 42, painter

Kaphar is an “artist whose paintings, sculptures and installations explore the intersection of art, history, and civic agency.”

Sources:
Johnson, S. (2018, October 4). Here are 2018’s MacArthur ‘genius grant’ winners, including an Illinois legal schoar. Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-macarthur-genius-grant-winners-1005-story.html
The Washington Post (2018, October 4). 2018 MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’ winners. Retrieved from https://washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2018-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-winners

Be Prepared – More Work is Coming!

You picture yourself holding that shiny acceptance letter to the college of your choice.  You think to yourself – the hard part is now over!  But the harsh reality is, your hard work is only just beginning.  Donalyn Miller, keynote speaker at the 2017 Virginia Association of School Librarians Conference, dropped a heavy statistic on her audience.  One of the top reasons students do not graduate on time (or at all) is due to the increased workload colleges expect students to keep pace with.  On average, students are required to read 300 – 800 pages A WEEK, for their coursework.  When is the last time you have read that much per month?  Unfortunately for many of us, it has been a while. Our reading stamina is severely lacking.  So what can be done?

  • Uh, Read. Read everything you come across – road signs, the back of the cereal box, the newspaper (do people still get those?)
  • Reconnect with a good book. If you are not enjoying what you’re reading, odds are your book is going to collect dust on your nightstand.  Find something better.
  • Find a better reading spot. If you’re comfy, you will be more likely to read for longer.  May we suggest the amazing pods in the back of the library?
  • Limit distractions. This seems like a no-brainer, but if reading isn’t your preferred go-to activity it won’t take much to lose your focus.  Put the phone away (or turn off notifications), turn off the television, and read!
  • Build good habits. Just like anything you’ve ever had to learn it takes practice and setting yourself up for success.

Share with us below all the amazing things you are reading (Mrs. Hiltner is keeping tabs on her Twitter @MrsHiltnerReads).  Our anticipated Book Birthday in your Research Library is November 12th!  We can’t wait!

OPERATION INTEGUMENTARY

Students in Mrs. Fallon’s Veterinary Science class were on a mission to get the present for the new puppy.  In order to open the final box, they first had to solve puzzles, find clues, and work as a team to “Break Out” of their area.  Clues included everything from 3D printed horse hooves (thanks to Mr. Ajima in the MakerSpace) to virtual puzzles to conditional forms. What a great review!