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TODAY6560 Braddock Rd., Alexandria, VA 22312

NOVEMBER 13, 2013 VOLUME 29, ISSUE 2

tjT H O M A S J E F F E R S O N H I G H S C H O O L F O R S C I E N C E A N D T E C H N O L O G Y

3-D printers help with projectsP12P8P5 Virginia elections

incite opinionsSeo goes 24 hours without social mediaP16Students find healthy

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Requirements to graduate in Virginia changeby Ellen KanManaging Editor

This fall, another change in the graduation require-ments for Virginia high school students went into effect. Beginning with the class of 2017, all students who wish to obtain a standard or advanced studies diploma must complete a virtual course before graduating.

First introduced in 2011 by the Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS), the second largest school sys-tem in Virginia after Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), the idea of an online graduation requirement was subsequently modified and adopted by the state when Gov. Bob McDonnell signed the bill into law in April 2012 as part of his campaign for education reform.

Whereas the VBCPS proposition mandated that these online courses be worth at least half a credit, the current state policy allows students to fulfill their graduation requirement through both credit and noncredit-bearing, or elective, courses.

At the moment, it is uncertain to what extent this new decree will apply to Jefferson students. According to Principal Evan Glazer, the state policy is not clear about what constitutes an online course, as the requirement can also be interpreted as an “online experience.”

“The state guidelines are very ambiguous, so FCPS has to figure out what is considered acceptable,” Glazer said. “The Jefferson adminsitration’s goal is to see if we can provide an automatic approval because the blended learning experience is something that all Jefferson stu-dents do. My hope is that the requirement does not de-tract from the our students’ Jefferson education.”

continued on p. 2

by Lindsay WilliamsOnline Editor

The Fairfax County School Board recently passed a res-olution in 2012 allowing seniors to opt out of their first and second period classes that are not required for graduation. This is being offered on a limited basis for the class of 2014 with only two students at Jefferson taking advantage, but the program will be implemented in full next year.

Currently, students who don’t need their first two class-es to graduate are being permitted to drop those classes and come to school later. Next year, students will be al-lowed to elect not to take first period classes.

Counselor Tonya Lathom believes that this will be a good option for students who need the extra time for sleep, especially those who have long drives.

“I think it’s a great option for students to have,” Lathom said. “Students have already exercised their voice that a later start for some is a good idea by enrolling in the online classes which enables them to come into TJ late. Because so many students are coming from all over northern Virginia it’s a way of not having to deal with an hour and a half bus ride and being able to drive in and gain more time to sleep.”

Principal Evan Glazer also believes that opting out of first and second period as a senior will reduce stress for some students, who are currently not taking a fifth period class in order to spend the full day at their mentorship ac-tivities.

continued on p. 2

School Board allows early periods opt out

by Sandy ChoNews Editor

After nearly seven years of planning, designing and build-ing, the TJ3Sat satellite is ready to go up into space, making Jefferson the first high school to have students successfully build and launch a satellite. It will be launched from the Na-tional Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Wal-lops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va. on Nov. 19.

The TJ3Sat is a CubeSat, a cube-shaped satellite typically used for space research. By sending external text strings through a ground station, a Text Speak module on the satel-lite will convert the text into analog voice signals and on a frequency, the satellite will send the signals to amateur radio stations on Earth. In addition, the satellite will also provide telemetry data on its status, such as voltage and temperature.

Students will also be able to send what they want said through the TJ3Sat website and the satellite will send those signals down for hours.

“The satellite will beam down the string of text on a ham radio frequency and even people on the other side of the world, like China, will be able to hear when it passes over,”

senior Rohan Punnoose, who is the current student leader of the project, said.

Under Energy Systems Laboratory Director Adam Kemp, the program began in the Systems Engineering course in 2006. The Orbital Sciences Corporation, a company that focuses on manufacturing satellites, donated a kit to help start the satel-lite. In addition, for the past six summers, students worked at Orbital on the actual flight hardware and assembly.

The project was supposed last only three years but after the class was cut in the same year, Kemp continued the proj-ect for his Energy Systems Laboratory.

“From about 20 students working on the satellite, it came down to two or three students,” Kemp said. “This year, Ro-han is the only person working on it.”

The launch was planned for earlier this year.“I’ve always wanted to do this project,” Punnoose said.

“When we found out that we would not be launching in 2013, but actually in late 2013, we needed another senior tech laba-tory project to work on the satellite. Mr. Kemp asked me if I would do it so I immediately said yes.”

continued on p. 2

photo illustration by Tara Gupta

t a k e o f fr e a d y f o r

After seven years, over 50 students and uncountable

hours of preparation, Jefferson is...

Students prepare to launch first high school satellite into orbit

Fall sports P6

november 13, 2013news2Kudos &

AccomplishmentsStudents are named to US Rowing Scholastic Honor RollSeniors Tim Lu, Emily Schneider and Virginia Wordsworth have been named to US Rowing Scho-lastic Honor Roll, three of 56 so-honored crew athletes around the country. In order to be eligible, students must have excelled aca-demically, participated in crew for at least one year and competed at or above a league or regional level during the school year.

Siemens finalists and semifinal-ists announcedJuniors Timothy Cha, Jeffery Liu, Oliver Shi, Kevin Wan, Jessica Wu and Wilson Zhou have been chosen as regional finalists for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Tech-nology. The finalists competed at the regional event at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, Ga. from Nov. 1 to Nov. 2. In addi-tion, seniors Naveen Ambati, Kabir Brar, Kunal Debroy, Akhil Gangu, Elizabeth Huang, Seong Jang, Tina Ju, Kunal Khurana, Rena Liu, Alex Monahan, Nathan Ouyang, James Sullivan and Robert Wang, junior Richard Oh, sophomores Jesse Cai and Fudong Fan and freshman Christina Oh have also been named semifinalists.

Marching Colonials win at two music eventsAt the Virginia Band and Orches-tra Directors Association (VBODA) State Assessment, the Jefferson Marching Colonials received the highest rating of Superior on Oct. 25. Also at the James Madison Uni-versity Parade of Champions, the group received the class AAAA championship and recognition for Best Percussion, Best Visual Perfor-mance and Best Music.

Members of Forensics Speech Team receives awardsAt the first local tournament, ju-nior Hugo Kessler placed sixth in the category of Extemporaneous Speaking while sophomore Mat-thew Sun placed third in Original Oratory at Broad Run High School on Oct. 26.

Goertel selected to Army All-Amer-ican Marching BandSenior Cabel Goertel has been chosen to be a member of the 2014 Army All-American Marching Band. The band will perform at the All-American Football game in San Antonio, Texas, this coming Janu-ary.

Golf places at StatesAfter closing the regular sea-son with a record of 6-1, the CoEd golf team placed fourth at States, which was held at the Meadow Book Country Club in Richmond, Va., and lasted from Oct. 13 to Oct. 15. This was the first time that the team was able to place high enough at Regionals in order to advance to States. In addition, individually, sophomore Nathan Chuwait placed third and junior Julie Luo placed fifth.

Students win on It’s AcademicThe Quiz Bowl team defeated Springbrook and Stone Bridge High Schools on It’s Academic, a televised quiz competition for high school students. The match was aired on Nov. 9 at 11:00 a.m. on NBC4.

To see more news, visit our website at tjhsst.edu/studentlife/publications/tjTODAY

tjTODAY Online

Requirements to gradu-ate in Virginia change


Although the Jefferson student body is traditionally comprised of budding scien-tists and engineers, art teacher Timothy Davis nonetheless decided to establish an official chapter of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) in hopes to bring aware-ness to the arts at Jefferson. The induction ceremony was held on Oct 21.

Created by the National Art Education Association (NAEA) in 1978, the NAHS opens doors to more opportunities and scholarships for high school students passionate about the arts.

“One of the reasons the other art students and I started the chapter is to bring a lot more attention to the arts at Jefferson,” Davis said. “Many students here are talented, skilled and major in art, and bring honor to the visual arts.”

In order to be eligible, students must have taken or be currently enrolled in at least one art class at Jefferson, maintain a 3.0 grade point average (GPA) and complete five service hours during the school year.

Senior president Megan Ganley actually started NAHS back in April with several of her friends, but got Davis to officially start a chapter starting this school year. She found the process of setting up the charter easier with Davis’ experience with NAHS at Oakton High School

“Since Jefferson is so focused on science and technology, the arts usually get washed to the side,” Ganley said. “After being in the art classes for a year, I wanted a way to unite Jefferson art kids.”

Currently, NAHS has plans to have the students involved more open to the creating art in the community, such as painting murals around the school and hospitals in the area.

In addition, through NAHS, Davis hopes to introduce more art competitions, invite guest speakers and take the members on field trips to art museums.

“It’s keeping members aware of contests, opportunities and things happening in the art world,” Davis said.

Students prepare to launch first high school satelite into orbit

To see more news, visit our website at tjtoday.org

Davis begins chapter of honor society

continued from p. 1Though the Systems Engineering

course built most of the satellite with the help of engineers from Orbital and Kemp, Punnoose worked primarily on the finishing touches, such as testing it to see if it would stand the vibrations during the flight. He also flew out to Albuquerque, N.M. this summer to put it in the launch vehicle, Minotaur I rocket.

The goal of the satellite is to inspire high school students around the world to work on large-scale projects, like the TJ3Sat. Jefferson will also provide pre-sentations and data to other schools so that they can build upon their experi-ence.

“The satel-lite is primarily an educational resource,” Pu-noose said. “Our ultimate mission is to get students and people around the world in-terested in aerospace tech-nology, space systems and satellites.”

In addition, clubs at Jefferson, such as Excelsior-Aerospace and Amateur Radio Club, have helped out with the satellite by providing research through similar projects and acting as a feeder to the satellite project.

“As of now, the research project it-self is done in the Energy Systems lab,” Kemp said. “Sometimes students from the Computer Science lab help with our web development and data handling.”

For example, junior Kaustubh Rane, a member of the Excelsior-Aerospace Club, is slated to assist in overseeing the telemetry data beaming down from

the satellite once it is launched.“I think it’s exciting to help but

there’s a limit to how much telemetry can do for the satellite due to its small size,” Rane said. “The capability of the satellite is great but there’s so much in-formation that can telemetry can pro-vide.”

The satellite will remain operative in orbit around the Earth for about three months. Afterwards, it will take about a year to reenter the atmosphere, where it will burn up.

Kemp hopes students will pursue small projects that will be built upon the research.

“I think that a project of this mag-nitude can be condensed into some-thing a little more feasible for the high school en-v i r o n m e n t , such doing s o m e t h i n g like a high altitude bal-loon or oth-er projects that have

the same technical aspects,” Kemp said. “The projects will have the same background knowledge required but wouldn’t have the long time frame and bureaucracy of something this so big.”

Although many students are not in-volved with the clubs, they’re still in-terested and proud of the milestone.

“It’s pretty cool that Jefferson is able to launch a satellite,” senior Linda Lay said. “Not every high school has the opportunity to do something like this, and the students at Jefferson definitely have the science and tech expertise to do this. It’s really exciting.”

continued from p. 1Virginia is now the fifth state, after

Alabama, Florida, Idaho and Michi-gan, to incorporate virtual learning into high school graduation require-ments. Certain school districts in Georgia, Tennessee and Wisconsin have also agreed to similar laws.

These measures are part of an in-creasing trend as both states and stu-dents shift toward virtual learning. Arkansas and North Carolina are also developing plans to implement virtual learning in the upcoming years, while Minnesota approved a bill in 2012 that “strongly encouraged” students to take an online course before graduat-ing.

Fairfax County currently uses the FCPS Online Campus as its primary virtual program while occasionally outsourcing to private companies such as Apex Learning. Virginia also has a state virtual school program known as Virtual Virginia (VVa), for which stu-dent enrollment has more than doubled in the last two school years, increasing from 6,460 to 13,026 students.

While many Jefferson students take online courses to fulfill course require-ments and make room for electives, some, like freshman Laura Chu, see the benefits that come with independence.

“I’ve taken a couple online cours-es, and they really helped me learn to learn by myself,” Chu said. “I would want to try something like an econom-ics course online, especially because it could involve some really cool tech components.”

However, others have mixed opin-ions about the new state policy. Online courses also come with their downfalls, which students summarize as a lack

of interaction with teachers and a de-crease in motivation.

“A drawback is that students may not take the course seriously or may not actually have that drive to learn what is in that curriculum if it is on-line,” freshman Chris Cao said. “They will probably just want to get over with it as soon as possible.”

Regardless of any lingering qualms that students may have, the popularity of virtual learning is on the rise. The Evergreen Education Group reported in “Keeping Pace 2013” that 310,000 students across the nation were en-rolled in fully online schools in the 2012-2013 school year, a 13 percent in-crease from the previous year.

In addition, 740,000 students took at least one semester-long virtual course, up from about 620,000 students in the previous year.

“Even though I prefer actual teach-ers in a classroom setting, online class-es are the next step in our technolog-ically-advancing world, whether they are more or less useful,” senior Sind-hura Kolachana said.

Students use platforms, such as Apex and Blackboard, to take online courses.

photo by Sandy Cho

continued from p. 1“If people take a step back from time

to time, get more sleep, they can do things more in depth rather than rushing. I’m in favor of students doing less, and doing a better job at less,” Glazer said.

Some students, especially those with longer commutes, agree that this could be beneficial in terms of sleep and stress levels.

"If we were to be able to drop one or two classes instead of taking electives in the morning, we would have time to get the sleep that we need to do better in school," junior Sanjoli Agarwal said.There are some drawbacks to skipping one or two periods. It limits students’ abilities to take some of the more interesting classes at Jefferson that aren’t required, which means that many students will be reluctant to participate.

“I think seniors would want to start late as long as they don’t miss out on some of the unique electives available to them," Glazer said. "Right now, taking the first course online seems to be a more desirable option to start late than skipping the first course altogether.”

Others think that this could in fact lead to students doing worse in the classes they have already because they would be less focused.

“It would be nice to sleep in, but having a first period at school forces you to stay on top of things,” junior Mikaela Ruiz-Ramon said. “I’ve seen it over and over again with my senior friends, the ones who are taking a first period that isn’t at school and it’s so easy to start slacking off and get behind on things. I think having a first period at school forces you to get your act together and do your work.”

School Board allows early periods opt out

"The satellite is primarily an educa-tional resource. Our ultimate mission is to get students and people around the world interested in aerospace technol-ogy, space systems and satellites."

- senior Rohan Punnoose

newsnovember 13, 2013 3

NEWSMAKERSOneAxe entertains

photo courtesy of Matthew Savage

Jefferson takes on PilotPhilly

photo courtesy of Sandy Cho

Regional finalists travel to Ga.

The News Students collaborate on their programs at PilotPhilly.

Backstory For 24 hours, students tirelessly coded innovative computer programs and applications at PilotPhilly, which was held at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and took place Nov. 9-10.

For high school students living on the Northeast coast, PilotPhilly is the largest hackathon where students work in teams of maximum of four people, to create projects as well as receive feedback from experienced mentors.

“The experience brought up my self-confidence in my ability to code and my ability to stay awake for extended periods of time while coding,” junior Jason Hu said.

Many of the students that attended the PilotPhilly are already acquainted with hackathons after TJ hosted its own, HackTJ, which took place April 26-27, 2013.

“HackTJ was something I enjoyed,” junior David Lanman said. “I wanted to have another experience like that, and improve on mistakes I made there.”

Out of 143 participants, 32 students represented Jefferson. A team of Lanman and juniors Kyle Herndon, Matthew Savage and Zach Wade placed third with their project called Oxide, a real-time code editor where programmers can collaborate on programs. In addition, a team of Hu, junior Shicheng Zhao and homeschooled junior Justice Suh won “It Just Works” category with their project, MotionMusic, which uses Leap Motion senors.

Despite working on little sleep, students had a valuable and productive experience.

“I would definitely do it again. It was a lot of fun and definitely a great use of 24 hours,” Savage said. “I also learned a lot about a few topics I had never really considered in the past.”

- Sandy Cho

The News Junior Kira Becker and senior Ben André perform in “Oh, What a Tangled Web.”

Backstory The drama department presented the 27th Annual Knight of One Axe on Nov. 8-9, telling tales of love, death, deceit and family. Three of the one-act plays, “The Long Christmas Dinner,” “Sure Thing” and “Oh, What a Tangled Web” were directed by Zachary Roberts, while a fourth one-act play, “Exit, Pursued by a Bear,” was written and directed by senior Adam Friedman and junior Gavin Moore.

“We were approached about having Shakespeare Troupe perform a one-act,” Moore said. “Because it would be difficult to condense a full Shakespeare play into a one-act time frame, we decided to do excerpts from several shows. The title comes from a famous stage direction from ‘The Winter’s Tale.’”

Two plays, “Oh, What a Tangled Web” and “Sure Thing,” were comedies. “Oh, What a Tangled Web” told the story of a young girl’s intricate lies and how they affect the people around her, while “Sure Thing” narrated the tale of two strangers falling in love at first sight with the assistance of a bell. A more solemn play, “The Long Christmas Dinner” followed a family’s Christmas dinners over the course of 90 years, with family members being born and dying throughout the show.

The Knight of One Axe is traditionally put on to encourage and let newer members and incoming freshmen perform in the drama department. The next drama production will be “A Taste of Honey” on Feb. 7-8.

“One Axe was fun because it brought together seasoned drama kids, new freshmen and everyone in between,” senior Will Ashe said. “The final shows were great, and we all had fun performing on the stage.

- Yena Seo

The News Junior Timothy Cha stands next to the poster board display of his research project.

Backstory Recently named regional finalists for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, juniors Timothy Cha, Jeffery Liu, Oliver Shi, Kevin Wan, Jessica Wu and Wilson Zhou flew out to Atlanta, Ga. to partake in the Regional Competition, which took place Nov. 1 to Nov. 2.

The competition was held at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), where finalists competed to advance to the National Competition, which will be held at the George Washington University at Washington, D.C., in December.

“It feels great and rewarding to be chosen since my team each put in over 300 hours on the project,” Zhou said.

For the competition, finalists needed to provide a poster board display of their project, give an oral presentation for 12 minutes that detailed research and findings and hold a private question-and-answer session with a panel of judges for 14 minutes.

“Overall, I just felt extremely nervous,” Cha said. “However, at the same time, I also felt confident because I knew all of my information and I was as prepared as I could ever be.”

Despite the competitive atmosphere, students enjoyed their stay as they met peers from their region, which consists of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

“I thought this was a great experience,” Wu said. “We met a really smart and great group of people.”

- Sandy Cho

photo courtesy of Marco Sainati

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opinion november 13, 20134

In recent times, the Re-publican Party has been as-sociated with the Wall Street community . This has been because the Republican-Party has tra-

ditionally been the pro-business party that favors lower taxes and less corporate regulation. However, this once steadfast relationship has been under duress as members of the Republican Party in Congress have been blamed for causing the most recent showdown over raising the fed-eral borrowing limit and the subsequent loss in faith of United States sovereign debt.

The core philosophy of the Republican Par-ty for the last 50 years has been lower taxes and less government regulation, stances that Wall Street bankers used to be very much in sup-port of. However, the Tea Party has a philoso-phy of “scaling back federal spending” as a part of an “anti-government wave” according to Washington Post reporter Zachary Gold-farb. Because their business involves govern-ment policies and securities Wall Street does not want to see the government hurt. In 2011, the U.S. government spent $10.46 billion per day, and this money flowing into the econo-my allows Wall Street to do business. Another example is the Federal Reserve, a government institution charged with maintaining the sta-bility of the U.S. financial system.

Investors also rely on the full faith and cred-it of the U.S. and its ability to pay its debts. This is why China and other Asian nations own so much of the $17 trillion debt of the U.S. – it is the most reliable in the world. Without the reliability of the United States Treasury bond, the global economy has no baseline against which to measure risk. Measuring risk is criti-cal to investing companies, which Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase make their money off of. This leads to their need for predictable economic policy. Warren Buffet said on the Charlie Rose show that “the debt ceiling is silly to start with.” Although Buffet is a well-known liberal, this sentiment is widespread through most of Wall

Street, which tires of the economy repeatedly being held hostage over the “political weapon of mass destruction” that Buffet termed the idea of a debt ceiling.

According to the Tea Party’s official web-site, one of the 15 core beliefs of the Tea Party is that “special interests must be eliminated.” This runs very much counter to the world that Wall Street bankers have become accustomed to. Groups such as the Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce, both of which have strong ties to Wall Street, have tradition-ally influenced laws passed by Congress. But with this ultimatum issued by the Tea Party, these interests groups have found their influ-ence waning. This has been shown in both interest groups’ inability to prevent the House

of Representatives from shutting down the government and creating a showdown over the federal borrowing limit in October and the events that happened as a result.

Wall Street has lost its political compass. It can no longer support the Republican Party in its current state, with the Tea Party faction, because it is pursuing an anti-government agenda and not the pro-business agenda that is important to Wall Street. Wall Street has lost the ears it used to whisper into on Capitol Hill and the predictable economic policy it once en-joyed while supporting the Republican Party. Wall Street bankers are inherently self-interest-ed in making money, and the new Republican Party does not support them in this. The ques-tion is -- where will they turn?

Volume 29 Issue 2

2013 Pacemaker - NSPA2013 Trophy Class - VHSL2013 All-American - NSPA2013 Gold Medalist - CSPA

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief

Shayna Hume

Managing Editor

Ellen Kan

Online Editor

Lindsay Williams

News Editor

Sandy Cho

Opinion Editor

Tommy Lunn

Sports Editor

Stav Nachum

Spread Editor

Alexis Williams

Entertainment Editor

Anshula Rudhraraju

Features Editors

Anjali KhannaEsther Kim

Social Media Editor

Yena Seo

Staff Reporters

Tara Gupta

Adviser

Erinn Harris

Printer

Silver Communications

TjTODAY is the official newspaper of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology published monthly by the journalism staff. It serves as a vehicle for student expression and is an open forum of issues of interest and concern to the school community.

A full-year subscription can be purchased through the Thomas Jefferson Publications Package or by sending a check or money order for $20 to tjTODAY.

The staff is deeply committed to a code of journalistic ethics that demands the exercise of accuracy, good judgment and impartiality. The content of tjTODAY is determined by the editorial board.

Unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of the staff of tjTODAY, but not necessarily the opinions of individual editors. Signed editorials and letters to the editor reflect the views of the authors.

tjTODAY solicits advertising but reserves the right to reject any material deemed libelous, disruptive, obscene or otherwise inappropriate.

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TODAYtj

“What’s the weighting?”It’s an automatic question that

most students ask without realizing its implication: We take classes be-cause they will help our GPA. We also take them because of interest in content, but if it comes down to two classes in the same subject area, and one is AP while the other isn’t, it’s ob-vious what our choice will be.

That’s a problem.A solution that Jefferson has found

over time is in course names. For ex-ample, by having a series of unique elective classes such as Law and So-ciety, One Question and Ethics and Leadership that have specially ap-proved honors syllabi, it has been pos-sible to give social studies electives at Jefferson an honors weighting.

Unfortunately, this solution doesn’t fix the lack of post-AP weightings or the unweighted foreign languages, a type of class many students find to be as difficult as their STEM subjects. Foreign languages remain listed in the Jefferson course catalogue with a 0.0 weighting for all levels before and after AP.

Fortunately, post-AP courses are already on their way to increased weighting. A movement to give Jef-ferson post-AP classes the equivalent weighting of an AP course has already passed through the Department of In-

structional Services. The movement is currently in the final stages of approval and is being looked

at by Superintendent Karen Garza and the school board. The weighting also has the possibility of retroactive-ly raising the GPA of many students who have already taken the affected post-AP courses.

Some of the classes that might be affected by this change are the elec-tives most unique to Jefferson: Paral-lel Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Neurobiology and Quantum.

Additionally, a majority of post-AP classes not only offer a curriculum more demanding than those of the majority of other classes in the school, but also include a syllabus that covers a breadth of knowledge whose width isn’t constrained by standardized ex-ams.

Post-AP weightings have already been observed in Jefferson’s math-ematics department with positive re-sults. Multivariable calculus, linear algebra and differential equations—all post-AP courses—already boast a 1.0 weighting, turning what would otherwise be a grueling semester into a less stressful learning experience.

This is not the first petition to raise weightings in the recent past. Only recently, a petition also passed that gave honors weighting to summer school courses. Summer school has become nearly a given for a majority of Jefferson students, and the weight-

ing on classes such as computer sci-ence and chemistry was well received.

This petition is a step in the right direction, because it recognizes the work done in many of the most chal-lenging courses offered at Jefferson. In future, it would not be surprising if numbers swell in the generally small advanced science electives. However, the weighting also has an unfortunate capacity to worsen the educational environment.

The reason post-AP electives still exist is because year after year, stu-dents manage to enroll in them. If the petition becomes reality, the weight-ing may become just an incentive to take the applicable electives, rather than an earned scale.

Along the same lines, the prob-able added weighting may also put unweighted humanities and fine arts courses under more duress, as stu-dents who might have been reluctant to face post-AP electives are embold-ened to take them on.

While the weighting itself is well deserved and a long time in coming, the result may too easily become a continued rush for classes with the highest weighting. It’s the same prob-lem we had before the petition was ever introduced, and if you’re tak-ing GPA into account, there’s no way around it.

Whether the petition passes or not, students should continue to push their educational limits and when picking their classes for next year, not just go for the 1.0.

Post-AP weighting is deserved, but that shouldn’t be a deciding factor in schedulesLead Editorialtj TODAY’s unsigned majority opinion

Wall Street is no longer Republican

SAM ROHRER

Republicans fail to support pro-business policy

cartoon by Tara Gupta

opinionnovember 13, 2013 5Virginia’s gubernatorial elec-

tion was a telling one for the Re-publican Party: the GOP has much to learn in selecting its candidates.

Ken Cuccinelli was unpopular for several reasons, particularly his unwavering and extreme stance on social issues, and lost support from moderates and wealthy individu-als who have traditionally sup-ported Republicans. This resulted in the $15 million dollar fundrais-

ing deficiency which separated him from McAuliffe. However, he lost the election by only 2 percent of the vote, exceeding the expectations of many polls.

Cuccinelli’s strongest appeal was his opposition to the Afford-able Care Act, which he adamantly opposed as Virginia’s Attor-ney General. This bill is wildly unpopular among those who are concerned by the federal government’s intrusion into the health care industry, which constitutes 18 percent of the GDP, and who are satisfied with their current situation, which is threatened by the bill.

Further grievances caused by the 11,000-page bill are that Congressmen had only days to read it before voting and the con-tinued lies by President Obama, who clearly stated, repeatedly and with finality, that, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period.”

We now see that this isn’t true as many are being forced to purchase more expensive plans, despite their content with cur-rent coverage, which does not reach the standards set by the bill. I say all of this because Cuccinelli saw improvements in poll numbers, and an unexpectedly high turnout on Election Day, af-ter he began casting the election as a choice between a supporter and an adversary of Obamacare. Exit polls showed voters op-posed Obamacare 53 percent to 45 percent. The Republican party needs to make the topic a key issue in future elections.

What negatives affected the Cuccinelli campaign? The most obvious were his positions on social issues, which were viewed as extreme by both parties. These stances were not issues which Cuccinelli would have legislated; even if he had tried, a bill to ban abortion in all instances would not have passed the state leg-islature, which is controlled by more moderate and pragmatic Republicans. These views featured prominently in McAuliffe’s campaign ads, which have been plaguing our televisions for months.

This raises Cuccinelli’s next problem – he did not have the full support of his party, particularly the influential and wealthy in-dividuals whose support is crucial considering the rising cost of campaigns. The Republican Party is undergoing internal strug-gles between the “establishment” and more resolved, conserva-tive, “Tea Party” members. This led to the selection of Cuccinelli as a candidate, which was clearly unwise.

The race for Attorney General, the results of which will likely not be finalized for weeks, shows that the GOP is capable of se-lecting somewhat personable candidates – Obenshain ran on a platform which was more positive than either gubernatorial can-didate’s – but he still did not have the full support of his party. Many Republicans, such as Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, of-fered no support to any of the three Republican candidates. Oth-ers endorsed McAuliffe.

The most important lesson the Republican Party needs to learn is that its candidates must appeal to their base; we cannot continue hoping that a distrust of Democratic opponents will be enough to motivate conservatives, for it clearly has not. Conser-vative ideals don’t need to change, for they lead to the prosperity America has enjoyed for so long. It is the conservative party that needs to change.

TOMMY LUNN ALLEN PARKER

Virginia acts as national political bellweather

By Shayna Hume and Tommy LunnEditor-In-Chief and Opinion Editor

When the Common Application (Common App) sys-tem crashed on Oct. 13, it sent students scurrying as they attempted to resolve the errors thrown at them. Though most colleges reacted accordingly and extended deadlines to ensure every student had the chance to apply, that scare prompted thought over whether or not the ease of an on-line application is worth it.

The Common App had only 15 members as a pilot project when it was lauched in 1975 and has since ex-panded to include most major universities in the Unit-ed States, as well as select schools abroad. Its first on-line version was launched in 1998, but it was not until 2006 that the online version was made mandatory.

The error this year didn’t appear to be a server over-load. Instead, the Common App blocked students who were attempting to send their applications to schools such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Georgia Institute of Technology from both viewing the PDF of their application and paying and submitting their applications.

Despite the fact that Common Application is a not-for-profit institution, it is used by more than 500 in-stitutions around the world. As a result, almost every

Jefferson senior will have to make use of the Common App during their college search.

This year’s errors were not the first difficulties that the Common App has had. Ignoring the ever-present issues with word count and text formatting errors, the system has been plagued with irritations over the past few years—and passed those difficulties along to the students attempting to use it.

Last year’s severe issues prompted the change to the new formatting. The previous word limit was 500 words, almost too short to truly express one’s ideas. Technical issues were also abundant, especially on things such as the “print preview” page.

This year also marked the debut of a new online sys-tem for Common App. Changes include a completely new online interface. Criticisms of the new website include the fact that it is much more difficult to log on and to enter relatively basic information. Additionally, the Common App got rid of its résumé section, creating mixed reactions. Possibly most controversial was the elimination of the open-ended essay and the restriction of the new prompts.

Moreover, the other types of reports sent to colleges, such as Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and high school transcripts, should also be centralized. For the most part, College Board has made the process of sending

test scores efficient. Although it may take a few days, the process is usually simple and relatively quick — a quick submission and payment online.

However, paper high school transcripts are being phased out across the country and, if possible, should be at Jefferson as well. For those applying to schools not on the Common App and outside of the U.S., it is often easier and preferrable to send electronic official transcripts. But with the rush of other paper tran-scripts, those for schools with rolling admission often fall behind in priority in the transcript office and do not get sent very early, taking away some appeal of rolling admissions.

That is not to say that people applying to non-early application or non-Common App schools should take priority. If official transcripts, at least in some form, were available online, the process would be sped up for a number of students.

Although the colleges with due dates of Oct. 15 and Nov. 1 reacted quickly to the problem and presented a convenient solution, it shouldn’t have been on them to make that call. The college application process is stress-ful enough without these added difficulties: If we’re going to use an online Common App, we shouldn’t have to refresh a computer monitor for 12 hours before being able to submit.

Online applications further obscure cumbersome process

Democratic wins will keep Virginia on the right path for future progress and change within the commonwealth

Virginia needs the conservative values of the Republican party

Another gubernato-rial election has passed and with it comes much needed change for Vir-ginia. Voter turnout was relatively low; it is an off year, after all. However, Virginians made their point clear: They will not stand for Tea Party-style right-wing extremism.

Other elections, such as the New York mayoral election and New Jersey gu-bernatorial election were much more straightforward, with Democrat Bill de Blasio and Republican Chris Christie winning, respectively. Similarly, lieutenant governor-elect Ralph Northam handily defeated op-ponent E.W. Jackson.

But as weak a candidate as he was, Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe should have defeated Ken Cuccinelli with a larger margin of the vote. As attorney general, Cuccinelli attacked women’s health rights and sued a University of Virginia professor for his work with climate change. And of course, Cuccinelli filed law-suit after lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare – ruled constitutional by the Su-preme Court.

And yet, McAuliffe barely won. Exit polls show that two-thirds of McAuliffe’s supporters may have been voting against Cuccinelli and not for McAuliffe. That’s the scary part. McAuliffe ran a strong campaign based on jobs, civil liberties and healthcare. A few

scandals have set him back, but in the grand scheme of things, they are much more trivial than those of current governor Bob McDonnell and Cuccinelli.

At this point, the attorney general race between Democrat Mark Herring and Republican Mark Oben-shain is headed towards a recount. Regardless of what happens, Herring should have won. Obenshain, like his Republican comrades, has focused on an anti-women agenda instead of prosecuting criminals. For example, Obenshain, if elected, would push legisla-tion to require women to report miscarriages within 24 hours with failure to do so resulting in a fine and up to a year in prison.

Herring, instead, would focus on the right pri-orities. His time as state senator has highlighted his strengths. Herring would focus on protecting civil liberties while prosecuting sex traffickers and sexual offenders. And for those concerned about McAuliffe, Herring has a strong ethics record and likely would not let anything happen, even in his own party. For-tunately if Obenshain ends up the winner, the Demo-cratic state leaders should be able to limit his ability to impose his radical viewpoints. Unfortunately, he may take a Cuccinelli-style approach and waste Virginia’s money in frivolous lawsuits.

No matter what, Virginia’s political parties need to work together for the greater good. The common-wealth has been doing relatively well in recent years, but there are a few key things that need progress. Transportation and job growth should not be partisan issues. Marriage equality and abortion, while polar, should be taken on as popular support grows.

Unfortunately for Virginia and the Dem-ocratic Party country-wide, the races were much closer than any polls indicated they would be. The Demo-crats should have won by larger margins, es-pecially considering whom they were up against in the election. Voter turnout was low, with key Democratic groups likely not vot-ing.

As the next presi-dential election rolls around, Democrats need to be wary of can-didates such as Chris-tie, who may very well take the independent vote. The next nation-al elections, as seen in Virginia’s eletions, will weigh heavily on the effectiveness of Obam-acare as well as the social positions of the canidates.

Either way, I’m proud of Virginia and hopeful for the next four years.

cartoon by Tara Gupta

sports november 13 20136

“I run three miles every Sunday to help keep my endurance up so that I’m not as tired during the games, and I go to my community weight room on Saturdays to continue to build muscle.”

“I practice at home by going on runs and learning many different moves. At school, I watch the more experienced girls play and learn how to improve from them.”

“I want to go to Navy volleyball camp. At that camp, you play about eight hours a day. There are clinics for your desired position, and you work on playing smart with the ball.”

- freshman Bayliss Wagner -freshman Steven Rehard- freshman Sarah Hoback

photo courtesy of Bayliss Wagnerphoto courtesy of Steven Rehardphoto courtesy of Catherine Im

by Stav NachumSports Editor

While many Jefferson students and alumni like to boast their bumper sticker claiming “We Came for the Sports”, this cheeky phrase that has long become assosiated with the school has set a misconception that Jefferson is lacking in the athletic department. In reality, this bumper sticker contradicts the significant athletic ac-complishments of the students at this school over the years.

It’s no secret that Jefferson has been doing incredibly well this season. Not only have the field hockey, volleyball and cross coun-try teams captured the title of Capitol Conference champions, but nearly every other sport has also been doing better than the school has seen in Yet is this victory solely attributed to the district change from the Liberty District to the Capitol Conference this year, or is it simply because Jefferson has some sports stars on the rise?

“We’ve seen rising stars across the board, from nationally com-petitive swimmers to the girl’s lacrosse team that went to Regionals last year,” senior and varsity field hockey player Priya Seetharaman said. “Jefferson athletics were already beginning to defy the stereo-type that nerds can’t do sports, but this change in conferences will help us reach bigger goals in the coming years.”

During the 2012-2013 school year, Jefferson teams played in the AAA Liberty District in the Northern Region of the Virginia High School League (VHSL). This year, however, a rearrangement by VHSL of schools in various districts was instituted for playoff pur-poses in order to even out the playing levels of teams. This shuffling of teams caused Jefferson to switch into 5A North Region’s Confer-ence 13, otherwise known as the Capitol Conference.

“I don’t think the district change this year made Jefferson teams any less hardworking,” senior Yana Kaplun, a member of the var-sity cheerleading squad, said. “For example, knowing that we had a greater chance of success this year, our cheer team created a harder

routine and practiced more often than in the past few years. Luckily, our efforts paid off in this new district.”

Jefferson is known for its strong cross country, swim and dive, track and field, crew and tennis teams, each of which have led the school to win many victories and titles, some of the other teams needed the district change in order to shine through.

“The district change definitely worked in our favor. However, I don’t think that should discredit our accomplishments this season,” senior Care Shoaibi, a varsity volleyball player, said. “Even if we had been in the Liberty District rather than the Capitol Conference, we still would have performed well.”

Some people may claim that many of this season’s victories came only as a result of the district change, such as the volleyball and field hockey teams winning the Capitol Conference championship games. However, the truth is that many players are improving and working harder in order to gain their victories.

“People think that teams have only been winning more because we moved to an ‘easier’ conference, but no one has considered all of the hard work people have put in to get to this place,” senior Ellen Mulé, varsity field hockey player and captain, said. “There still are no guaranteed wins, and we are putting in the work every day, both on and off season to earn our victories.”

Whether or not the district change is the reason for the many victories that Jefferson has had this year, there is no doubt that the athletics department will improve over the coming years, and more victories like this year’s can be expected.

“The district change didn’t change much for those of us in the football program, but many other sports were able to play teams closer to us, and in many cases, win,” junior Adi Suresh, a player on the varsity football team, said. “Jefferson sports has come a long way in the recent years by winning titles that seemed unlikely, if not impossible, a few years ago.”

Victorious in the CapitolVHSL district change leads to many victories in fall season

photo by Ellen Kan

Freshmen athletes begin training to reach varsity level sports teams


Raising spirits at every football game and increasing school spirit at pep rallies and other school events, Jefferson’s cheerlead-ers are the symbol of the school’s liveliness. The squad participated in many competitions throughout the season.

Over the past few weeks, the cheer squad has attended district and regional competitions as they worked toward their desired title of champions. In both the semifinal and final competitions of

districts, they secured notable victories . “This season was incredibly rewarding for our team,” senior

Yana Kaplun said. “We started strong on day one and only got bet-ter as the season progressed.”

In their first performance at the first round of the semifinals, they didn’t perform as well as they had expected and as a result accomplished only second place. In the second round, the cheer squad nailed the routine and beat Marshall High School who had been in first place, only to lose to Falls Church High School, who gained many points after taking out an illegal stunt, leaving Jeffer-son in second once again.

At the finals of the district competition, the top three schools did not change even after Jefferson’s squad spent the past week making changes to increase the difficulty of the routine. Even after an amazing performance, they still trailed Falls Church by only six points and ended the districts competition in second place.

“Though none of our performances were perfect, we performed to the best of our abilities,” senior Allison Ko said. “We are satis-fied with second place, though personally I think our team had the most advanced and most interesting routine.”

At Jefferson’s first cheerleading regionals competition in sev-eral years, the squad placed seventh out of the 12 teams, placing just below the sixth place spot they needed to advance to the finals competition. The Colonials scored a total of 187 points, trailing the sixth place team as a result of losing points for their tumbling and dance rather than for technical deduction. Not being able to move onto the state competition, the squad’s season came to a close.

“I’m proud of the team because we gave everything at competi-tions and left it all on the mat at Regionals,” senior Emma Gee said.

There is no doubt that next year the squad will come back stron-ger, eager to win all titles that they will be competing for.

“I think that next year the squad will be looking forward to fighting for that district title again, along with other victories,” Ko said. “The squad will be even better next year and hopefully they will take first place.”

Football


Cheers erupted throughout the Jefferson stands as, with just over two minutes remaining on the clock, Jefferson scored an illustrious 35-yard field goal, leading Jefferson to its first win over Madison High School in school history.

“I was obviously excited, but more importantly I felt like all our hard work had finally paid off,” senior and captain Andrew Fountain said. “It was a milestone for the program.”

This memorable match, along with countless others from the season, show that the football team deserves their increasingly improving record. From only winning one game of 10 back in the fall of 2010, the football team has steadily bettered their record to winning three and then six games in the fall of 2011 and 2012 respectively.

“Our class, and program as a whole, has grown immensely,” senior Daven Kim said. “It’s great to see our four years’ worth of dedication pay off this season.”

After a victory against Madison High School this season, many of the football players see this season as a threshold toward better seasons in the future. They believe that though many strong seniors will be leaving, many new stars will surely arise from amidst the underclassmen and those players will continue the legacy of Jefferson football that began this year in their monumental victory.

“It hasn’t really hit me that this is my last season of football, but the future of the program is bright. Thanks to Coach Kincaid there is a new program identity,” Fountain said. “We are not here to have a good time. We play to win.”

Football makes school history

Senior Jamie Kim cheers on the football team from the sidelines.photo by Stav Nachum

Field HockeyVolleyball

Sophomore Alex Hoganson sprints to the fin-ish at the PR Kickoff to place 23rd in the race.

Cheer squad ends season on a high note with at district semifinals and final competitions

sports november 13, 2013 7Volleyball team garners first title in school history by Stav NachumSports Editor

An empty wall space in the gym amidst the plethora of victories boasted by those around it can finally be filled with Jefferson volleyball’s new banner, displaying their victory for the entire school to see.

After grueling matches against Lee, Marshall and Mount Vernon High Schools for the Capitol Conference Quarterfinal, Semifinal and Championship matches respectively, Jefferson volleyball has, for the first time in school history, been named Capitol Conference champions on Nov. 7.

“We were really excited to win our team a banner and make school history,” junior Alexis Gillmore said. “We were all very emotional over our victory.”

As the top seeded team for the confer-ence championship, the players antici-pated games filled with close scores until the last second of each match. Knowing that this was their chance to make a name for Jefferson, they all put their hearts into every game until the final buzzer went off.

“We were feeling confident going into the game, but we knew Mount Vernon was going to put up a fight,” junior Julia Dunbar said. “After being undefeated in our conference, we knew winning was an attainable goal.”

Their conference victory was not the only honor awarded that night, as some players received awards for their dedica-tion to the team and hard work throughout the season. Juniors Amanda Nguyen, who is co-captain, and Maria Velicu re-ceived first team All-Conference honors, while senior co-cap-

tain Care Shoaibi and junior Melanie Piller received honors for the second team. In addition, Velicu and Head Coach Helen Smith received awards for Conference Player and Coach of the Year.

“Receiving All-Conference honors on top of winning the conference is awesome because it means that all my dedication to the sport has paid off,” Nguyen said. “It’s great to know that I’ve been individually recognized for my achievements.”

The district change has also allowed the volleyball team to face schools that they had never played before. This change, while a factor in volleyball’s success according to some of the

players, was mostly a chance to start over and create a new name for Jefferson among new schools.

The team believes that the secret to their success was not the district change, but their vic-tories can instead be attributed to the fact that the team is com-prised of all juniors and seniors, so they have had more time to practice together and get to know each other’s playing styles and strengths over the years.

Additionally, the players began training earlier than they had in previous years for the upcoming season and added more weekend practices to their schedules to become a stronger and better team.

“Our team benefited from being able to play some new op-ponents, but we won games against teams from our old dis-trict, as well,” Dunbar said. “We did so well this year because we trained harder and seized the opportunity in front of us.”

Volleyball’s victory at the conference championships is only the start for the team. Now advancing to the regional championships, the team has the ability to make even more school history should they also win Regionals for the first time.

“We’ve brought so much recognition to our program this season by winning the conference,” Shoaibi said. “As a senior, I want to win Regionals because I want to keep this season go-ing for as long as possible before I have to say goodbye.”


When the final whistle blew to end their conference fi-nal on Oct. 31, the sweat-soaked field hcokey team ran into a huddle, thrilled over their first conference victory since 1995. They knew that all of their hard work had finally paid off, because they were the reason that Jefferson once again had a name in field hockey and a championship to

show it,. “We knew since the beginning of the season that we

had a very strong team this season,” senior co-captain El-len Mulé said. “This was an amazing culmination of all the hard work we had put in.”

The hard-fought match against Edison in the conference finals was a tough game from the start, even though Jeffer-son previously beat them 3-1. After keeping up offensive

pressure throughout the game, the final score was a 4-0 win for Jeffer-son with two goals by senior Izzy Roscoe and one goal each by Mulé and sophomore Katie Zechman.

“I was so excited that we’d won the conference. We had fought for it, and it was something we hadn’t won in 17 years,” sophomore Ma-aike Blindenbach said.

In addition to their incredible conference triumph, three players were also awarded additional hon-ors that night. Blindenbach, Roscoe and senior Priya Seetharaman re-ceived All-Conference honors for their incredible efforts and perfor-mances throughout the season.

“When three years in a row the team gets out the first round of dis-tricts, it feels amazing to come out the other end and win it all,” Ros-coe said. “Getting all conference is a very nice honor, but it means

so much more to have the team championship behind it, because that has been our goal since the very start of the season.”

While some people may attribute field hockey’s victory to the district change, many of the players believe that their team has improved and that the district has nothing to do with their victory this season.

“I really do not like how people say that we only won the conference because our new conference is so weak,” Mulé said. “Our team was one of the best Jefferson has seen in years, and we still had to beat strong teams to get to where we did.”

Once the team won the conference championships and advanced to Regionals, they continued their win-ning streak by defeating Massaponax High School 2-1 in the first round of Regionals on Nov. 4. Unfortunately this victory streak did not continue until the end of Regionals, as the team lost 3-0 in the semifinals against Orange High School on Nov. 6.

“We didn’t show the same energy and teamwork in that game that had enabled us to win the conference,” junior Raewyn Haines said. “After the loss, it was very difficult for all the girls on the team to remember how much we ac-complished this season, but ultimately we’re very proud of our post-season accomplishments.”

Even though they did not win Regionals, the team is pleased with their success in the conference championship.

“I think next year will be challenging because the team is losing their leading goal scorers as well as their goalie,” Mulé said. “But I know that all of the girls are ready to put in the work over the offseason to keep themselves at the top of the conference.”

Junior Maria Velicu helps her team to secure the conference victory.

Freshman Bayliss Wagner plays hard throughout the season to help field hockey win.

“As a senior, I want to win Regionals because I want to keep this season going for as long as possible before I have to say goodbye.” - senior Care Shoaibi

photo courtesy of Maria Velicu

photo by Stav Nachum

Conference champions emerge

Field hockey team celebrates victory against Edison

november 13,2013 9

by Alexis WilliamsSpread Editor

As the days grow colder, people everywhere begin eating richer and richer foods. Halloween Candy, Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks, baked goods and other holiday foods high in calories edge out the fresh fruits and veg-etables that are more easily found in summer months. But all of these sugar, fat, and calorie-rich foods come at a cost to students.

Health teacher Barry Potoker informs students that moderation is the key to maintaining a healthy diet during the fall season when so many bad foods are available.

“Students need to make a conscious decision about what they put on their plate,” Potoker said.

According to Potoker, students who are motivated to maintain a healthy diet can find fruits and vegetables year-round—although they will be slightly more expensive. Potoker also stressed that the unhealthy foods in the holiday season do not have to be completely sworn off, just proportioned so that the student’s diet is balanced and does not exceed his or her excercise plan.

“I recommend a reward system for students,” Potoker said. “If the stu-dent exercises regularly, then he can eat a little bit extra later on.”

According to Potoker, the desire to maintain a healthy diet during the fall has to come completely from the student—there is no “easy way out.”

“If the individual wants to stay healthy, it starts with willpower,” Po-toker said. “They can make the decision to watch what they eat, exercise, moderate and make sure they have less fat and more proteins, fruits and vegetables in their diets,” Potoker said.

Exercise is also a crucial part of staying healthy during the fall. Many students find that they have less time to exercise as the weather turns

colder, but finding the time to incorporate some exercise into day-to-day activities can not only combat the fatty foods, but can also lead to better test scores.

“Students say that they do not have time to exercise or they do not want to go outside, but a student that wants to stay healthy during the fall has to find a way to fit it into their lifestyle,” Potoker said.

Another problem that students frequently encounter is not finding the time to make the right food choices. Students that skip breakfast or lunch in favor of homework may not have time during the day to find a healthy option, and instead just go for the fast-acting sugar fix.

“Students that skip lunch and have sports practice after school are of-ten starving,” Athletic trainer Heather Murphy said. “Students looking for fast-acting calories will find fast foods instead of healthy ones.”

Many students say that a good way to stay healthy during the fall is by substituting certain ingredients that have less fat or sugar. Using almond meal instead of graham crackers for pie crust or using fruit as a sweetener instead of sugar are natural ways that students can stay healthy without giving up on any of the deliciousness of the foods.

“In my family for Thanksgiving, we try to use natural and organic in-gredients when possible and reduce certain oils,” junior Anant Das said. Many students, however, don’t believe that staying healthy amidst all of these holiday foods is a problem because they only appear at this time of year.

“Pumpkin pie is unhealthy, but I only eat it once a year,” sophomore Rohini Sarkhel said.

Most believe that while overdoing is unhealthy, holiday foods are per-fectly fine in moderation.

“I think it’s okay to have a piece or two of candy every once in a while, but a lot of people overdo it,” junior Julia Casazza said.

Students try to cut calories amidst the rich foods of the fall months.

eatings

5

Nutritional Information (Based on Pillsberry Merry Berry Wreath Cookies per two cookies)

Calories: 400Fat: 16 gSugar: 44 g

Try these Snickerdoodles instead:Ingredients:

1 cup coconut flower1 egg1/3 cup ghee3 tablespoons honey2 tablespoons vanilla extract1/8 teaspoon sea salt1/4 teaspoon baking powder2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions:1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.2. Mix coconut flour, sea salt and 1 teaspoon baking

powder.3. In another bowl mix together egg, ghee, honey and

vanilla extract.4. Mix dry and wet ingredients together.5. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.6. Place batter by tablespoon full on a parchment lined

baking sheet.7. Cook 10-12 minutes.8. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

This recipe is no sugar added, gluten-free and replaces butter with other oils that are healthier.

4

Nutritional Information(based on a Giant small pie per pie)

Calories: 1,350Fat: 60 gSugar: 90 g

Try this pecan pie instead:Ingredients:

Filling:6 dates3 eggs3/8 cup maple syrup2 teaspoons vanilla2 tablespoon coconut oil1 1/4 cups pecansCrust:1 1/2 cups almond flour1/4 cup melted coconut oil1 egg

Instructions:1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.2. Combine crust ingredients in a small bowl.3. Press crust into pie dish. Bake 5 minutes.4. Put dates into food processor. Run until dates

form a paste. Remove pits.5. Add egg, syrup , vanilla, flour and oil. Blend

until smooth.6. Gently fold pecans into mixture.7. Pour filling into crust.8. Bake 30-40 minutes until pie is set.

This recipe is no sugar added, gluten-free and uses natural oils to replace butter and cut fat.

5 Pumpkin Pie

Christmas Cookies

spread

Recipe courtesy of Elise Favia, nutritional information courtesy of pillsbury.com

Recipe courtesy of Elise Favia, nutritional information courtesy of Giant Foods

photo by Erinn Harris, graphics and reporting by Alexis Williams

season’s

spread november 13,2013 9

by Alexis WilliamsSpread Editor

As the days grow colder, people everywhere begin eating richer and richer foods. Halloween Candy, Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks, baked goods and other holiday foods high in calories edge out the fresh fruits and veg-etables that are more easily found in summer months. But all of these sugar, fat, and calorie-rich foods come at a cost to students.

Health teacher Barry Potoker informs students that moderation is the key to maintaining a healthy diet during the fall season when so many bad foods are available.

“Students need to make a conscious decision about what they put on their plate,” Potoker said.

According to Potoker, students who are motivated to maintain a healthy diet can find fruits and vegetables year-round—although they will be slightly more expensive. Potoker also stressed that the unhealthy foods in the holiday season do not have to be completely sworn off, just proportioned so that the student’s diet is balanced and does not exceed his or her excercise plan.

“I recommend a reward system for students,” Potoker said. “If the stu-dent exercises regularly, then he can eat a little bit extra later on.”

According to Potoker, the desire to maintain a healthy diet during the fall has to come completely from the student—there is no “easy way out.”

“If the individual wants to stay healthy, it starts with willpower,” Po-toker said. “They can make the decision to watch what they eat, exercise, moderate and make sure they have less fat and more proteins, fruits and vegetables in their diets,” Potoker said.

Exercise is also a crucial part of staying healthy during the fall. Many students find that they have less time to exercise as the weather turns

colder, but finding the time to incorporate some exercise into day-to-day activities can not only combat the fatty foods, but can also lead to better test scores.

“Students say that they do not have time to exercise or they do not want to go outside, but a student that wants to stay healthy during the fall has to find a way to fit it into their lifestyle,” Potoker said.

Another problem that students frequently encounter is not finding the time to make the right food choices. Students that skip breakfast or lunch in favor of homework may not have time during the day to find a healthy option, and instead just go for the fast-acting sugar fix.

“Students that skip lunch and have sports practice after school are of-ten starving,” Athletic trainer Heather Murphy said. “Students looking for fast-acting calories will find fast foods instead of healthy ones.”

Many students say that a good way to stay healthy during the fall is by substituting certain ingredients that have less fat or sugar. Using almond meal instead of graham crackers for pie crust or using fruit as a sweetener instead of sugar are natural ways that students can stay healthy without giving up on any of the deliciousness of the foods.

“In my family for Thanksgiving, we try to use natural and organic in-gredients when possible and reduce certain oils,” junior Anant Das said. Many students, however, don’t believe that staying healthy amidst all of these holiday foods is a problem because they only appear at this time of year.

“Pumpkin pie is unhealthy, but I only eat it once a year,” sophomore Rohini Sarkhel said.

Most believe that while overdoing is unhealthy, holiday foods are per-fectly fine in moderation.

“I think it’s okay to have a piece or two of candy every once in a while, but a lot of people overdo it,” junior Julia Casazza said.

Students try to cut calories amidst the rich foods of the fall months.

Nutritional Information (info is per latke)

Calories: 99Fat: 5 gSugar: 0.7 g

Try these latkes instead:Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes6 tablespoons canola oil3 eggs, beaten2 tablespoons matzoh meal2 teaspoons kosher salt1/2 teaspoons coarse black pepperOptional appleasauce or sour cream

Instructions:1. Prepare a large bowl filled with cold water2. peel potatoes and place in cold water3. Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat4. Cut potatoes so that they fit into food processor.

Using food processor, shred potatoes.5. Add eggs, matzoh meal, salt, and pepper6. Drop 6 to 8 spoonfuls of mixture into hot oil. Pat

down each latke with back of a spoon to flatten7. Fry three to four minutes per side8. Bloot excess oil with paper towel9. Serve with sour cream or applesauce

This recipe is homemade and eliminates artificial ingredients and flavoring found in store-bought latkes

eatings

1

3

4

5

1

Nutritional Information (Based on Pillsberry Merry Berry Wreath Cookies per two cookies)


Try these Snickerdoodles instead:Ingredients:

1 cup coconut flower1 egg1/3 cup ghee3 tablespoons honey2 tablespoons vanilla extract1/8 teaspoon sea salt1/4 teaspoon baking powder2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions:1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.2. Mix coconut flour, sea salt and 1 teaspoon baking

powder.3. In another bowl mix together egg, ghee, honey and

vanilla extract.4. Mix dry and wet ingredients together.5. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.6. Place batter by tablespoon full on a parchment lined

baking sheet.7. Cook 10-12 minutes.8. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

This recipe is no sugar added, gluten-free and replaces butter with other oils that are healthier.

4

Nutritional Information(based on a Giant small pie per pie)

Calories: 1,350Fat: 60 gSugar: 90 g

Try this pecan pie instead:Ingredients:

Filling:6 dates3 eggs3/8 cup maple syrup2 teaspoons vanilla2 tablespoon coconut oil1 1/4 cups pecansCrust:1 1/2 cups almond flour1/4 cup melted coconut oil1 egg

Instructions:1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.2. Combine crust ingredients in a small bowl.3. Press crust into pie dish. Bake 5 minutes.4. Put dates into food processor. Run until dates

form a paste. Remove pits.5. Add egg, syrup , vanilla, flour and oil. Blend

until smooth.6. Gently fold pecans into mixture.7. Pour filling into crust.8. Bake 30-40 minutes until pie is set.

This recipe is no sugar added, gluten-free and uses natural oils to replace butter and cut fat.

5

Nutritional Information(info based on Hershey’s King Size Chocolate Bar)


Try these chocolate chip cookies instead:Ingredients:

3 cups bleached almond flour1/2 cup virgin coconut oil1/2 cup maple syrup2 eggs1 teaspoon baking soda1 teaspoon salt1 teaspoon vanilla extract1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Instructions:1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.2. Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl.3. In a small bowl, beat eggs, maple syrup and

vanilla extract.4. Pour wet ingredients into dry and beat.5. Melt coconut oil, pour into batter, and blend6. Stir in chocolate chips.7. Place balls of cookie dough on parchment

lined sheet.8. Bake for 15 minutes, let cool and serve.

This recipe uses natural replacements so that it is sugar- and gluten-free, which is healhier.

2

3

Nutritional Information (info based on Starbucks Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte)


Try this tea instead:Ingredients:

2 teaspoons loose Oolong Chai Tea3/4 cups water3/4 cups skim milk1 tablespoon sugarCinnamon

Instructions:1. Mix milk, water, and tea in sacuepan. Place on

medium heat.2. Add sugar and cinnamon.3. Bring to a boil.4. Serve hot.

This recipe eliminates the whole milk, whipped cream and sugary syrups of holiday latte drinks.

Halloween Candy

Starbucks fall latte drinks

Pumpkin Pie

Christmas Cookies

Latkes

8 spreadnovember 13,2013

Recipe courtesy of Andrea Donate-Perez, nutritional information courtesy of starbucks.com

Recipe courtesy of Elise Favia, nutritional information courtesy of hersheys.com

Recipe courtesy of Shayna Hume, nutritional information courtesy of usda.gov Recipe courtesy of Elise Favia, nutritional information courtesy of pillsbury.com

Recipe courtesy of Elise Favia, nutritional information courtesy of Giant Foods

photo by Erinn Harris, graphics and reporting by Alexis Williams

season’s

2

entertainment march 30, 200910 november 13, 2013

by Anshula RudhrarajuEntertainment Editor

Theo Decker had a proper family – well, he had his mother. That was before he got into trouble at school, before his mother decided to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), before the terrorist bombings at MoMA left him homeless and alone while he was desperately trying to find himself in the world of greater New York, and before his life started spiralling wildly out of control.

Donna Tartt’s newest novel, “The Goldfinch”, is a bildungsroman about a young schoolboy forced to adapt to a life of loneliness. Released on Oct. 22, “The Goldfinch” has already garnered multiple words of praise from respected writers, such as Stephen King. The novel was also selected as one of Amazon’s “Spotlight Picks” for the month.

Written as a classical, 19th century style novel, Tartt weaves a beautiful coming of age tale pursued in literary depth. The world shown through the eyes of Theo Decker displays the emptiness of life without a family and the difficulty of becoming accustomed to a new one.

The novel uses flowery language that provides a steady contrast to the dark themes explored in the writing. Tartt uses words that create a false sense of security, underplaying the situation that Decker finds himself in, shrouding the true severity of the entire plot line.

The pages are plagued with thievery, murder, and drugs intertwined with aristocratic quirks and philosophical quotes in a one of a kind novel that only Tartt can formulate. A lot of the life lessons in the novel are drawn from the owner of an antique shop, an old man named Hobie, whose compassion and patience could be considered heart-warming.

Hobie is the closest thing to home for Decker. With the sudden brushes of death, run-ins with a Russian mob, and the stoic, wealthy, money-minded family of his friend Andy, who treats Decker with respect but not love, Decker needs a home.

The book is nothing but a page-turner with an amazingly character-driven plot. Tartt wanders into the depths of her characters’ mentality. She concentrates on exploring the gray areas of their lives.

The only flaw in the novel was the prolonged introduction which mimicked a long drawn out funeral march. The transition to Decker’s past is convoluted, making the flashback almost confusing.

Tartt sets the stage for the entire novel by first introducing the lovable and adoring mother that Decker is so fondly attached to. Although the backstory allowed the readers to empathize with the protagonist, it lacked adequate emotional intensity. Hidden within the text are a few paradoxes, which remain as enigmatic by the end of the novel as they did when they were first introduced.

Tartt displays an impeccable attention to detail, weaving in the mysterious painting of a goldfinch, hence the title, into the novel subtly. She is able to create a story that shines a sweet and sour light on life and the pain of dealing with guilt.

Tartt succeeds at creating a bittersweet tale

“Day of the Doctor” draws closer

by Lindsay WilliamsEntertainment Editor

On Wednesday, Oct. 30, the Jefferson Sirens and show choir submitted their audition video for the SingStrong a cappella competition.

SingStrong is a national a cappella competition and convention for teams at the high school, college and professional level. The three day event consists of work-shops, competitions and concerts. This year, SingStrong will be held in Washington, D.C., where the Sirens and show choir will compete. SingStrong includes a work-shop before the competition, a high school level competi-tion and a professional and college competition.

“SingStrong is a competition, but it’s also a chance for different groups to get together and learn from each other and get a feel for how to perform,” senior Meena Nayagam, co-captain of both Sirens and show choir, said. “The workshop that goes on before the competition is really the meat of SingStrong.”

The auditions occurred on October 30th. The Jeffer-son Sirens performed “Jumping Trains” by Jojo and the show choir did “Royals” by Lorde, both of which were arranged by another co-captain of both teams, senior Ol-ivia Sullivan. The auditions were difficult to coordinate because of the sheer number of people between the two teams, but both teams found a date that worked and si-rens even coordinated outfits, with all of their members wearing blue.

“It was a bit of a challenge this year because both of

our groups are so much larger than they used to be, so physically getting everyone in the shot was a challenge, but we’re thrilled that both groups are so big because the sound is amazing from both choirs,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan and Nayagam are looking forward especially to the professional and college competition. They believe that is a good way to meet people higher up in the indus-try who are more knowledgeable and experienced.

“In addition to performing, you get to sit and watch some of the other groups perform, especially the col-lege and professional ones, which are of a much higher caliber than us, so we’re hoping to learn from them and

Sirens on stage sing strong during auditions

infographic by Anshula Rudhraraju

‘Britney Jean’Dec. 03 : USA

‘The Hobbit’ Dec. 14: Theaters Everywhere

‘Hunger Games’Nov. 22: Theaters everywhere

ComingAttractions

photos courtesy of studio websites

by Kenneth HauGuest Writer

Begun in 1963 as a show to “bring science to the masses,” “Doctor Who” began as a uniquely British phenomenon, rising from obscurity to fame before it’s cancellation in 1989. However, the show returned in 2005 to an eager audience and has since grown from a cult classic to an international hit.

The “Doctor Who” restart, “New Who” as the initiated call it, has been running for eight years, which is every reason for celebration. But this year is cause for even greater festivities. In lieu of the bicentennial anniversary of the show, on Nov. 23, Doctor Who will be releasing its 50th Anniversary: “The Day of the Doctor,” a 75-minute feature film to end the brutally tantalizing cliffhanger of season seven’s finale.

The special will be released in 75 countries around the world simultaneously in what some have called the largest synchronized mass-distribution in television show history. On Oct. 23, it was announced that aside from being broadcast on BBC Entertainment in Europe and BBC America in the United States, it will also be shown in 2-D and 3-D in theaters across the world. Since then, tickets have sold out at an alarming rate with the Fairfax Cinemax, the only participating theater in Virginia, completely booked within 24 hours.

But aside from being the mere return of a cult-favorite television broadcast, the 50th Anniversary will also bring back some of the most revered actors in the history of “New Who.” The current actor playing The Doctor, Matt Smith, will be joined by show icons such as predecessor David Tennant and previous co-star Billy Piper. Many in the self-named fan group, the Whovians, support the return of these characters.

“Rose is my favorite character but she never got the right parts given to her,” junior Adi Suresh said. “I think it’s amazing how she went from a normal 19-year-old girl to a full-grown adult and I really appreciate

that.”However, some Whovians are less

optimistic with the return of some of these characters.

“The only thing that I’m not excited about is that Rose is coming back,” sophomore Alison Hau said. “She is annoying and only cares about herself.”

The rivalries within the Doctor Who fan base are evident and disagreements surrounding certain characters are almost palpable in the excited atmosphere of the Whovian fandom. But most would agree that as previous Doctors have never returned, at least not in “New Who,” the 50th Anniversary will be setting some memorable precedents.

With the announcement that Matt Smith would step down this December, as well as the ominous introduction of John Hurt simply as “The Doctor,” much fan-based controversy and speculation has grown concerning how Matt Smith will step down. Adding fuel to the fire, it was announced this summer that Peter Capaldi will be taking Smith’s place to become the 12th incarnation of the Doctor.

C a p a l d i , who has a p p e a r e d previously on both “ D o c t o r Who” and a Doctor Who spin-off series, has been met with mixed emotions from the fandom.

“I’m really sad to see Matt Smith go,” junior James Jung said. “I’m also really interested and scared at the same time for Peter Capaldi.”

With less than a month to go before the anniversary, anticipation

runs high for the new episode. How will Matt Smith leave, how will previous Doctors return, and how does John Hurt fit into all of this? These questions will all but disappear as the date approaches. And as much controversy might surround Doctor Who’s awaited release, most agree on one thing.

“I expect that there will be much sadness about the Doctor leaving,” Hau said. “But, I’m glad that I won’t

be going through withdrawal anymore.”

The mad man with a box returns on TV and on the big screen on Nov. 23

photo courtesty of www.hachettebookgroup.com

photo courtesy of bbc.co.uk/doctorwho

Sirens sing “Jumping Trains” by Jojo a cappella during their SingStrong audition on Oct. 30 to impress the judges.

‘Midnight Memories’Nov. 25 : USA

‘Doctor Who’Nov. 23 : Theaters and TV everywhere

graphic by Anshula Rudhraraju

photo courtesy of Mikaela Ruiz-Ramon

entertainmentnovember 13, 2013 11

Jefferson alum presents in DCby Shayna HumeEditor-in-Chief

When Courtney Dressing walked to the front of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Albert Einstein Planetarium on Oct. 19, the crowd fell into an immediate hush. The lecture was the first in a series of ten lectures that started in October and span until March of 2014.

Dressing, a Jefferson graduate from the class of 2006, spoke on the topic of “How to Find a Habitable Planet” as a graduate student representative of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The topic gave Dressing the freedom to range from everything from Exoplanet history to future missions to supplement the late Kepler Mis-sion, however in her presentation she remained both through a pre-cise, citing excellent statistics and examples to help her audience un-derstand concepts such as the Dop-pler Shift and imaging techniques.

The lecture series, formally titled “Smithsonian’s Stars,” is spon-sored by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant, and is advised for ages thir-teen and up. However, Dressing’s lecture, at least, made what would otherwise be dense material accessi-ble for even the under-10 members of the audience, who probed her as eagerly as many of the adults.

Some of the highlights of Dress-ing’s presentation included the sim-ulations she provided for Exoplanet detection methods, and her final video of an imaginary star with ev-

ery potential exoplanet candidate revolving to scale around it.

Near the end of her lecture, Dressing gave a short question and answer session that gave her listeners a chance to ask questions both about her presentation and her own research on red dwarf stars. One of the highlights of the evening, it gave listeners as young as five years old a chance to voice their own confusions and queries into the subject matter.

Dressing’s lecture, despite being the first, was far from the least, and gave both experienced and inexpe-rienced members of the audience something to reflect upon. The next lecture, “Rivers and Lakes on Mars” will be given on Nov. 16 by Dr. Ross Irwin.

The “Smithsonian’s Stars” lectures will be taking place at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C from Nov.16 to March 8.

photo courtesy of airandspace.si.edu

by Anshula RudhrarajuEntertainment Editor

From questioning the possibility of color in the uni-verse to observing life on the Red planet, guest speak-ers from the National Air and Space Museum are dis-cussing topics that capture the attention of any science lover.

The lectures, titled “Smithsonian Star’s,” are fund-ed for by a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and recommended for any age 13 and above.

The upcoming lecture on Nov. 16, titled “Rivers and Lakes on Mars”, will be discussing the history of the red planet as well as the impact craters that once held bodies of water had on the Martian climate. The lecture will be presented by Doctor Ross Irwin who worked for two years as a visiting scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Institute.

The second lecture, “Oh, Swear Not by the Incon-stant Sun”, will be presented by Doctor David Vorkin on Dec. 7, is essentially a compilation of research that Smithsonian has done on the Sun’s power. It delves deeper into the hypothesis by Secretary Charles Gree-ley Abbott, who asserted that variation in solar pat-terns could influence weather and crops. Vorkin is the senior curator of the history of astronomy and space sciences at the museum as well as an astrophysicist.

“I think that some of the lectures seem fascinating, like ‘How to Color the Universe’,” said sophomore Emily Cleland. “I find it interesting how everyday

elements are present in outer space, and how they manifest themselves. The gorgeous colors that we see in images from the Hubble telescope are because of something as simple as Helium.”

“How to Color the Universe”, views a multiwave-length universe with telescopic data. The lecture on Feb. 22 will explore how we perceive the images that we see.

The final lecture, titled “Rediscovering the Milky Way”, will be hosted by Harvard Astronomy Profes-sor Alyssa Goodman. Goodman presents the idea of viewing the Milky Way through the eyes of another galaxy.

The lecture series was kicked off late last month by Jefferson alum Courtney Dressing (class of 2006). Dressing was presented on the topic of exoplanet re-search and gave an overview of the Kepler mission.

“I thought that the speaker was really good at ex-plaining the science in a way that even the kids could understand but that didn’t leave the adults bored,” said senior Emma Puranen. “She showed that she was really excited about the topic.”

According to astronomy teacher, LeeAnn Hennig, Dressing’s overall message was there are other planets

that might be similar to Earth. “Her basic message was that this is an exciting time

for astronomy and planetary science,” Hennig said. “We are right at the forefront of discovering planets right here and maybe planets that have life on them.”

With such a wide age range attending the lecture, Dressing managed to reach a wide range of people.

“She reached a broad range of audiences and she tailored her presentation so that it was general enough to hit a broad range yet give the essence of the specif-ics,” said Hennig.

The lecture series will run until March 8. and will be held in the Albert Einstein Planetarium at least once every other week. The lectures as well as the question and answer sessions usually begin around 5:15 p.m. and last around an hour.

Anyone interested in any of the lecture topics can feel free to visit the website for the National Air and Space Museum and request stand-by tickets. The “Smithsonian’s Stars” presentations provide a free educational experience for a wide age range.

“I think that the lectures in general brought in awareness,” Dressing said. “And presenting was kind of a magical experience.”

“Smithsonian’s Stars” shines on exoplanets Stellar presentations by various guest lecturers in Washington, D.C., spark an interest in space exploration and astronomy

DATE TOPIC LECTURER

11/16

“Rivers and Lakes on

Mars” An explora-tion of water

on Mars

Dr. Ross Irwin,

geologist , staff scientist for Center for

Earth and Planetary

Studies (CEPS)

12/7“Oh Swear Not by the

Constant Sun”Exploration of

solar power

Dr. David deVorkin,

senior curator of history of astronomy

12/14

“First Mission to Pluto: The Origins and Voyages of New Hori-

zons”First spacecraft to fly through

the Pluto system

Dr. Michael Newfield, curator in

science history department

1/11“Solar Loops,

tackling a forty-year-old

mystery”Unravel the mysteries of solar loops

Henry Winter, astrophysicist

technology november 13, 2013123-D printers expedite student projects

by Anjali Khanna and Anshula RudhrarajuFeatures Editor and Entertainment Editor

Apple believes in the power of lightness. With the global release of the iPad Air on Nov. 1, Apple

has proved that they are striving for just that. The iPad Air is only 7.5 millimeters thick and weighs

under a pound. Twenty percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the previous model, the iPad Air was designed with the purpose of portability. Every application is designed especially for the iPad, with stronger graphics

and an increased concentration on efficient productivity. Apple hopes to make the iPad models lighter than

before, while simultaneously making them more powerful. The company started working on this technology several years ago, developing the newest iPad for its release this month.

Another new feature of the iPad Air is it’s long lasting battery life. And with the addition of two antennas and multiple-input and multiple-output systems, the iPad Air features high-performance Wi-Fi connection.

Even before the release of the newest model, Jefferson students have used the iPad for both academic and entertainment purposes.

“I like how the iPad can be carried everywhere because it is so small. I also really like the touch-screen aspect of it,” sophomore Melissa Pothen said.

The new model also features an A7 chip which is more efficient than that of the previous model. Because of this addition, the battery in the iPad can be minimized while keeping the same battery life. The decrease in battery size also has made the new model lighter than before.

Despite these additions, Apple’s latest product seems to be a major disappointment even among adamant Apple advocates and tech-buffs.

“Quite frankly, I don’t see anything special with the new iPad Air,” freshman Tommy Park said. “But, it has created a new definition for the iPad Mini and the original iPad.”

The iPad mini and the iPad air, however, do not seem to show great differences besides the price and the retina display. The iPad mini weighs a little over half a pound and contains many of the same applications as the iPad Air. The iPad Air contains high-quality graphics and increased resolution. Much like the iPad mini, the iPad Air is extremely lightweight and easy to hold.

According to the Apple website, the 16-gigabyte iPad air with Wi-Fi can be purchased for $499, and the 32-gigabyte model is being sold at $599. IPad models with cellular data packages are priced from $629 to $929.

Not only did Apple release the new model for the benefit of the public, but also to keep up with the competition of rival companies such as Samsung and Amazon. With the recent release of hand-held tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Kindle Fire HD, some students believe the iPad air is simply Apple’s attempt to keep up.

“I think that the iPad Air symbolizes Apple trying to get back into the game,” senior Lucia Tian said. “But I think that they are capable of a lot more than just improving on the same device.”

Despite all the new features, the general attitude of the student population towards the new iPad Air seems to be negative.

“I think that the iPad Air is horrible,” sophomore Emily Cleland said. “It’s just Apple trying to remake something without trying to actually invent.”


With glowing blue lights, the 3-D printers are not hard to miss when walking into the Robotics Lab. Stu-dents stand around the printers, discussing what to print next as they scroll down a list on a small screen.

Though the Robotics and Energy System laborato-ries received these printers last year, the usage of these tools has increased and is expanding to underclassmen as well. Design and technology teacher Paul Kosek re-ceived a new 3-D printer this year so that his freshmen classes will be able use to it for their annual robot proj-ect.

“I feel like it’ll be a great leap in using more advance-ments that Jefferson generously offers for projects that’ll help us learn even further,” freshman Suzie Bae, a stu-dent in Kosek’s class, said. “It sounds really interesting to hear that we will be placing our hands on a machine that not many schools have.”

In order to print objects, students use a computer-aided design (CAD) program to create the 3-D image they want. The image file is sent to the printer and students are able to choose the file to print.

The printer is the size of a microwave oven and has no walls so that students can see the process. A printer head moves back and forth over a plate and layer-by-layer, the 3-D object is printed. The material that the printers at Jefferson use is plastic.

“3-D printing really opens the world to quickly prototyping ideas. If you were to machine a part out of metal or sculpt it out of clay, it takes a significant amount of time,” Energy Systems Laboratory Director Adam Kemp said. “But once you figure out how to use the printer, you can really take an idea from paper and to reality, in plastic.”

Currently, seniors are using the 3-D printers to as-sist them on their senior tech lab projects.

In the Robotics laboratory, senior Cyrus Tabrizi is developing a mobile platform for robots in order to assist in exploring remote locations and manipulating objects.

“While robotics platforms like this have been cre-ated before, my specific project will be built with the aim of having a combination of maneuverability and terrain-adaptability that is unmatched by other ro-bots,” Tabrizi said. “This will allow it to travel over more challenging surfaces outdoors but will also give it better performance in indoor environments.”

Since parts can be copied at a faster rate and cheap-

er price inside the classroom rather than machine shops, students will also be able to see if they need to make adjustments by printing out as many parts as they need.

“In the development process, we often use the print-er to create prototype parts that we expect to redesign and reprint several times or to create parts that won’t undergo intense loads or need to be very accurate in their dimensions,” Tabrizi said.

To prepare students for using the 3-D printers their senior year, elective classes have also incorporated proj-ects with the printers.

In classes such as Robotics 1, students grow famil-iar with the program and machine by creating copies of small objects, such as frogs and die. This way, juniors and sophomores may be inspired to have senior tech lab projects that utilize the printer.

“Though it depends on what my senior project is, I

can definitely see myself using the 3-D printer for some-thing, such as printing out a specific part, like a piece of plastic, really quickly,” junior Prashanth Panicker said. “If I need the part any nicer, I can print it a few more times to get it right so it’s not too difficult.”

The future of 3-D printing is also bright in the scien-tific world. In two years, Urbee 2, a car created mostly by 3-D printed parts by Cody and Tyler Kor, will be used for a road trip across the nation. 3-D printers can also be used to print body parts or assist in other fields of science.

“This will expand the realm of 3-D printing into ar-eas that it was previously not suited for, like the cloth-ing industry,” Tabrizi said. “In the future, I hope to see desktop 3-D printers become much cheaper, quicker, and more reliable, but I also hope to see them work with a wider range of materials.”

IPad Air garners attention from technology aficionadosThe 3-D printer, a new addition at Jefferson, is useful for making plastic models which have been designed with a computer program.

photo by Sandy Cho

IPads are used widely by many Jefferson students to work on academic assignments and play entertaining games.graphics by Anjali Khanna

featuresnovember 13, 2013 13Debate teams enhance public speaking skillsby Esther KimFeatures Editor

Ranging from current events and governmental policies to philosophy and ethics, the spectrum of insightful topics offered by three debate teams at Jefferson is anything but narrow, and teaches students to question the status quo around them.

These teams, Public Forum, Policy and Lincoln-Douglas debate, are some of the most popular eighth period clubs at Jefferson that garner the attention of numerous students who wish to foster their public speaking and analytical skills.

“Debate is a great way to learn how to speak eloquently and effectively about many subjects,” senior Zartosht Ahlers, the captain of Public Forum debate, said. “It helps students become better speakers and think quickly on their feet.”

Although all three teams are centered on the fundamental concept of using evidence to advocate a

particular stance in a topic, each individual team also boasts unique and distinguishable characteristics that attract the students.

While Public Forum debate discusses current events or phenomena that have incited pervasive impact in the world, such as global warming and cyberbullying, Policy debate focuses in investigating the pros and cons of policy changes.

Additionally, Lincoln-Douglas debate features a distinctive method of reasoning through emphasis on philosophical ideas, allowing students to actively engage their thoughts on the subjects often overlooked by the school curriculum.

“I think that any form of debate is great at giving students the confidence to speak in front of people,” senior Yana Kaplun, the captain of Policy debate, said. “Policy debate, due to its tremendous time constraints, has forced me to be very organized with the ways I present my information.”

All of the members of each debate team, who train and refine their debating skills at eighth periods, meet five times during the year to compete with other local high schools students in Washington-Arlington Catholic Forensic League (WACFL).

As adroit participants of debate, officers of the teams prepare its incoming novice members for the WACFL tournament by introducing new concepts and explaining the format and objective of each speech.

“For our junior varsity and varsity competitors, the material we cover becomes more nuanced as we delve into more advanced debating styles and techniques as well as actual speaking drills,” junior Sraavya Poonuganti, the teaching coordinator of Lincoln-Douglas debate, said.

In addition to the differences of each team’s primary focus, Policy debate further characterizes itself by studying and debating solely one topic throughout the year, as opposed to other debate teams. Furthermore, Lincoln-Douglas debate offers an exclusive one-to-one debate, allowing for more autonomy and independence while expressing one’s views.

“Policy debate does keep the same resolution all year, but the members of read thousands of articles written by hundreds of authors,” junior Jessica Covan, the treasurer of the team, said. “We don’t debate with our feelings, we debate with evidence.”

Although all three debate teams share apparent differences in their objectives, participating in any of the three will prompt the students enhance their quality of impromptu speaking and presentation skills, imperative tools of communication that will continuously benefit them

“Public Forum teaches students argumentation and speaking skills that are essential to post-high school success, regardless of their field of study,” junior Pegah Moradi, the teaching coordinator of the team, said.

Regardless of the type of debate the students pursue at Jefferson, its overarching emphasis on personal expression using evidence certainly fosters them to become passionate, trenchant and critical observers of the world around them.

“Debate made me more confident as a speaker, and I am able to express my opinions without any fear,” sophomore Sahana Ramani, the publicist of Public Forum debate, said. “Most importantly, it helped me to look at every situation through different perspectives.”

by Anjali KhannaFeatures Editor

In order to prepare new members of the Jefferson Model United Nations (Model UN) club for upcoming State Conferences, the club hosted a mock conference for novice members after school on Nov. 1.

Because the club plans to attend a state conference at the College of William & Mary, William & Mary High School Model United Nations (WMHSMUN), the club has been training novice members who will be attending a conference for the first time.

Directed by five head members, the Secretariat, the club plans to take home awards from the conference.

The Secretariat members teach the basic skills required for participation in the club, but members must bring their own communication and debate skills to the table to attend the state conferences.

“As with any art, Model UN requires patience and perseverance to succeed at the regional and national levels,” senior Parth Chopra, the Undersecretary-General, said. “The most important skillsets to master are communication and diplomacy, and the associated abilities to be able to express ideas and solutions.”

At a normal Model UN conference, the speaker’s list determines the order in which topics will be presented to the floor. In a moderated caucus, members of the various countries attempt to convince the other

countries in the conference to choose a specific topic from the speakers list to discuss.

During the mock conference, as different novice members take their turn speaking in front of the committee, Secretariat members made assessments about the speaking ability, diplomacy, and negotiation skills for each member.

The role of a Secretariat member is an important one, as it keeps the club organized and together, and strengthens the bond of the Model UN community.

“I would say that I sought this position to accurately and efficiently facilitate communication for Model UN members and have the opportunity to bring my passion for the club in a greater role as we plan for events such as TECHMUN, Jefferson Model UN global, conferences and eighth period activities,” junior Sreya Atluri, the Senator of the Model UN club, said.

During the mock conference, novice members worked with aspects of Model UN, which are realistic to that of actual conferences, such as moderated caucuses, unmoderated caucuses, working papers and passing resolutions.

Even the highest-ranking members of Model UN started as novice members. By practicing the fundamental skills of Model UN, such as diplomacy and debate, they were able to eventually achieve a Secretariat status, equivalent to club president.

“The exhilaration involved with Model UN inspired me to contribute more to the club and assume an increased level of responsibility to make the experience even better for my peers,” Chopra said.

Model UN prepares for upcoming William & Mary Conference

Junior Aidan Hennessey-Niland, the arbitrator of the Model UN club, directs the mock conference for the new novice members.

photo by Yena Seo

Left to right: at WACFL, sophomore Diane Lee reads her argu-ments on her laptop during a round; Sophomore Jessica Nguyen asks a question to her opponent during the cross-examination.

photos by Esther Kim

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features november 13, 201314

by Esther KimFeatures Editor

Juniors Jessica Hu and Jeong-In Seo unrolled a giant sheet of white paper and discussed how long they wanted the poster to be. The can-vas, which was currently blank, was soon to become Jefferson’s color-ful spirit banner for the upcoming Virginia Junior Classical League (VJCL) convention, at which approximately 90 Latin students will at-

tend from Nov. 24 to 25 at Richmond, Va.“We try to bring a good mix of students from 9th to 12th grade in each level of Latin,” senior Lau-ren Mostrom, one of the co-consuls of Latin Honor Society (LHS), said. “Usually, about 1500 to 2000

students from all over Virginia come to the conven-tion.”

The selected members, who are either LHS officers, Latin 5 students or students who sub-mitted short essays, will be participating in academic tests, producing artistic projects and engaging in creative art competitions, such as dramatic interpretation. The students will also be given the opportu-

nity to attend colloquia sessions, from which they will be introduced to a variety of ancient Latin and Greek culture.

“All students are required to take six tests at the convention, in subjects ranging from Latin reading comprehension to ancient geography,” Mostrom said.

In addition to academic tests, students such as junior Bobbie Sheng are preparing artistic products that allude to the Greek

or Roman classical eras, which range from greeting cards and dolls to scrapbooks. Sopho-more Matthew Sun is currently practicing for English and Latin Oratory competitions, in

which he will memorize passages that will be presented and evaluated during the convention.

“Convention was really fun last year, and I hope to improve my academic performance in Latin and learn new things about the Latin community,” Sun said.

The LHS officers are also heightening the anticipation for the event by creating a cheer for the spirit contest held in the beginning of the convention, decorating banners, and brainstorming ideas for the school shirt.

With this year’s overarching theme being “the beginnings of all things are small,” the officers are planning to incorporate the chaos theory and the butterfly effect to produce a scientific interpretation of the theme.

“Being Jefferson students, we have a proud tradition of taking these classical mottos and applying a distinctly scientific or mathematical spin to it,” senior Andrew Coffee, another co-consul of LHS, said. “This year, we will be adorning out shirts with a whirlwind, butterfly and Lorenz Attractor.”

The officers hope that the convention will allow students to rein-force the significance of Latin in the society and act as a central venue for the congregation of numerous Latin aficionados.

“Jefferson Latin is an incredibly active language society, a common interest in a civilization that existed far longer than ours did and a family,” Coffee said.

By attending the convention, the students will be able to engage in a welcoming environment of students from the Virginia community who are as invested in Latin as they are.

“It can be discouraging to hear people all the time say Latin is a dead language,” Mostrom said. “However, spending a weekend going to lectures about ancient culture and seeing how your peers can adapt a 2000-year-old myth to a quilt is something that would change any-one’s mind about the relevance of the Classics.”

Students run academic non-profit organizations NeuroInspire sparks scientific interest in elementary school youth

by Anjali KhannaFeatures Editor

Watching elementary school children develop a passion for neuroscience is one of the main goals at an organization that calls itself NeuroInspire. Run entirely by Jefferson alumni and current Jefferson students, the organization brings the Neu-roscience laboratory’s love of brain science outside the school walls and into the Virginia community.

The organization will be holding sessions about neurosci-ence at Glen Forest Elementary School from Nov. 1 to Dec. 6 as they start off the 2013-2014 year. Each session will be held after school on Fridays from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.

“We have a number of activities planned for the first ses-sion, from building neurons with K’Nex to using an EEG-based headset to measure brain waves to our signature brain dissections,” NeuroInspire Director Suhas Gondi, a Jefferson alumnus, said.

Usually focused on one or two major fields in neuroscience, NeuroInspire’s goal is to work with kids who are passion-ate about the science of the brain. During the pilot session at Kent Gardens Elementary School, the organization did a sheep brain dissection, and discussed the effects of neurotrauma on the human brain during car accidents, sports injuries and bi-cycle accidents.

Because the dissection is so popular among the students, NeuroInspire has made it into a culminating activity done at the end of the sessions.

“We vary each program so that it can match each group of

students,” senior Seong Jang, the Director of Operations and Recruitment, said. “That being said, we keep our curriculum very flexible so that instructors can easily change the demon-strations or modules that they decide to do at a session.”

Other common topics done by NeuroInspire at their ses-sions with elementary schools are neuron anatomy and sen-sory of neurotrauma.

“The activities are very hands-on and are aimed towards engaging the students in an active and dynamic learning expe-rience,” Gondi said.

After the sessions finished, Gondi remembers his favorite memories working with the kids.

“The sense of wonder and astonishment that I saw in the faces of the kids when I pulled out the brain was unmistakable, and was probably what I looked like when I first saw a brain,” Gondi said. “The excitement in their eyes was infectious. I think the curiosity that we were trying to kindle in the students was being rekindled in myself.”

During one of NeuroInspire’s summer sessions, students left messages on the chalkboard on the last day before the ses-sion ended.

With comments directed to the members of NeuroInspire, the students wrote about what in the session had an impact on them. Jang recalls that one of the students had written “Neuro-Inspired” on the board for the directors to see.

“It was a very touching moment for all the instructors there. These moments definitely make every session worthwhile for us,” Jang said.

KAST fosters scientific inquiry through fascinating experimentsby Ellen KanManaging Editor

As soon as they tip a roll of Mentos into the open bot-tle, the fourth graders scramble back and wait with bated breath. Within moments, they erupt into squeals of delight as a foaming geyser of Coca-Cola spurts into the air.

The Coca-Cola and Mentos experiment is just one of countless ways in which Kids Are Scientists Too (KAST) inspires elementary and middle school students to pursue their interests in the sciences and other science, technol-ogy, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

KAST is a unique program in that it relies completely on the guidance of high school students, as opposed to teachers or other adults.

“We break the regular schedule of adults teaching kids and try to make it less about grades and pressure to learn and more about having fun and enjoying science,” senior Madison Phillips, a lead facilitator at Annandale Elemen-tary School. “This hopefully gets the students more inter-ested in pursuing science when they get older.”

Instead of meeting during eighth period, KAST mem-bers stay after school on Fridays to travel to local elemen-tary schools.

“KAST exists to supplement a regular elementary school curriculum, even though it feels like fun activities for the kids,” senior Andrew Corzo, a lead facilitator at Columbia Elementary School, said. “It’s really an all-win situation since the kid’s parents don’t even need to pay be-cause it’s all an all-volunteer program.”

Jefferson KAST officially kicked off for the 2013-2014

school year on Oct. 25 when the first session was held at Bren Mar Elementary School. The program has grown rapidly since its beginnings in the 2011-2012 school year, when a small group of dedicated students worked on rais-ing funds and working out the logistics for creating a new branch.

Currently, Jefferson KAST is directed by seniors Grace Chuang and Karen Xia, who have carefully cultivated the program for the last two years. The program will experi-ence several changes in the upcoming school year, includ-ing the addition of two new elementary schools to create a total of five. This year’s leadership team has also expanded to include younger lead facilitators as opposed to the pre-vious group of primarily upperclassmen.

Many of the new leads, including sophomore Emily Hutcheson, are completely new to the program, although they are motivated to make the most out of the experience.

“I think it was actually elementary school programs like this that caused me to become so interested in science and technology,” Hutcheson said.

In addition, Jefferson KAST recently paired up with KASTech, a sub-branch that focuses on technology con-cepts rather than the core topics of biology, chemistry and physics, according to Xia. Jefferson KAST also plans to incorporate programming into the curriculum through games such as Scratch and Hopscotch. These supplemen-tary programs will be used to create a wider variety of les-sons, especially for elementary schools in which KAST is in its second year of operation.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the smiles on the kids’

faces and putting up with their antics,” Chuang said. “And this year, Karen and I are handing down the torch. We’ve chosen a larger leadership team with people from all four grades in order to make sure that when we graduate, ev-erything continues.”

Latin program aims for a successful state convention

NeuroInspire will be holding their first session for the new year at Glen Forest Elementary School from Nov. 1 to Dec. 6.

Senior Lauren Mostrom works with elementary and middle school students through Jefferson KAST, a program that helps kids become involved in science as well as other STEM fields.

photo courtesy of NeuroInspire

photo courtsey of Grace Chuang

Junior Jeong-In Seo prepares to work on the spirit banner for the VJCL convention by unrolling paper.

photo by Esther Kim

advertisementnovember 13, 2013 15

Have you bought your copy of the

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receive a free name plate.www.yearbookordercenter.com

Use order number 13621.

You know the senior ads that usually appear in the senior issue of the newspaper?

Well, they’re not going to be in the newspaper this year, they’re going to be in the yearbook!

What does this mean? It means that you WILL NOT be able to wait until the end of the year to purchase your senior ad.

SALES WILL END JANUARY 31ST. After January 31st, there will not be an opportunity to purchase a senior ad. At all. Ever.

The good news is that we’ve extended our sale prices through December 1st.

Through December 1st, you can still save up to $50 on your senior ad. Here are the prices:

SENIOR AD SALE EXTENDED THROUGH DECEMBER 1

Please make check payable to TJHSST PublicationsTypes of Ads/Sizes

Half Page Color ADorders received by Dec. 1 = $ 250orders received Dec. 2-Jan. 31 = $ 280

Full Page Color ADorders received by Dec. 1 = $ 500orders received Dec. 2-Jan. 31 = $ 550

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november 13, 201316 culture

photos, graphics and reporting by Tara Gupta, Shayna Hume, Ellen Kan and Yena Seo

by Yena SeoSocial Media Editor

The buzzing of my iPhone informed me of email after email, Tweet after Tweet and Facebook message after Facebook message as the screen lit up every few minutes or so. My friends and family would taunt me about someone’s scandalous Facebook photo, while I remained helpless and disconnected from the outside world.

It’s not that I didn’t have enough cellular data, or that I didn’t have any social media ac-counts. No, this was because I went technolo-gy-free for a day, with the exception of doing my homework. I wasn’t able to access any so-cial media website or application, and couldn’t read any text messages or emails, either. The experiment started on the morning of Oct. 23 when I woke up at 7:00 a.m., and lasted for a full 24 hours. I documented the day through blog posts on tjTODAY.org. Throughout the day, I received a total of 47 Facebook notifica-tions, 41 e-mails, seven Twitter notifications, 15 Instagram notifications and 10 text messages, despite the fact that many of my friends knew I would be participating in a social media-free day.

For those who know me, it’s a well-known fact that I am a huge fan of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. And just like Smeagol becomes obsessed and later corrupted by The One Ring, my iPhone 5 is my Precious, with the one ring-tone to rule them all. Throughout the day, when notification after notification would pop up on my phone, I could almost hear Gollum’s voice in the back of my head, screaming, “We wants it, we needs it, must have the Precious!”

While my addiction to social media, Internet and phone communication may seem drastic, I’m not alone. A national survey conducted by Common Sense Me-dia in 2011 showed that approximate-ly 70 percent of teenagers send and re-ceive text mes-sages every day, and 50 percent visit social media sites daily. No doubt, that number has increased in the past couple of years.

The number of students at Jefferson who engage in social media or other online com-munication is high, particularly on sites such as Facebook. As of Nov. 8, there are 1,149 mem-bers in the “TJHSST Class of 2017” Facebook group alone, over half of the student popula-tion. Almost every course and club at Jefferson has its own dedicated Facebook group, from “Glatter/Castaldo Senior Sem” to “TJ National Honor Society” to “TJ Physics 1 2013-2014.”

“I use social media for school purposes, if I forget what the homework is or if I need help with a problem; at least, I like to tell myself that,” senior Anthony Carrington said. “Most-ly, though, I waste my time on them for truly no purpose at all, and they aren’t that interest-ing.”

Facebook groups allow students to receive

reminders and help with homework, and also allow clubs and organizations within the school to advertise events and fundraisers.

“It gets hard because all event planning happens on Facebook and other social media sites, and my friends always have to do extra work which makes me feel bad,” sophomore Sophia Martinese, who is not a part of any social media site, said. “With class Facebook groups, I also often miss out on study guides that other students have access to.”

Other high school students in the county communicate more through Twitter than Face-book. At Annandale High School, the student government and class governments commu-nicate with the student body through Twit-ter accounts, while Wilber Tucker Woodson, South County and Chantilly High Schools have Twitter accounts to keep students informed on sporting events, pep rallies and spirit days.

“Most people use Twitter because Tweets are simply a series of summarized thoughts that are easier to read,” Lee High School senior Ben Darnell said. “If they’re funny, you can re-spond to them or Retweet them, and Facebook is dying because Twitter and Instagram com-bined are basically Facebook in a nutshell.”

Most Jefferson students belong to more than one social network, and while the dominant so-cial media web site is Facebook, many of them also have Twitters and Tumblrs. A poll con-ducted of 200 Jefferson students showed that all of them had Facebook profiles, 59 had Twit-ters, 56 had Tumblrs, 82 had Snapchats and 48 had Instagrams.

“I love Twitter because I don’t really have the attention span for anything else,” junior Kayleigh Vance said.

Despite the variety of social media that stu-dents use, one thing is for certain—students

spend a lot of time on the Internet, and much of that time is spent on social me-dia. Around 33 percent of 110 Jef-ferson stu-dents who answered a poll said that

they spend around three to four hours every day interacting on social media.

“Social media distracts people easily,” se-nior Mason Chee said. “I think that once people go on a social media site, they start losing track of time.”

If I’ve learned anything from my experience without any form of social media for 24 hours, it’s how time-consuming social media and elec-tronic interaction can be, and how much time it takes away from doing my homework. Just realizing how many texts, messages and noti-fications I missed was an eye-opener on how disconnected someone can be without social media when others have access.

Though I don’t see any more Internet-free days in the foreseeable future, I’ve learned valuable lessons from this experiment. Social media provides many positive and negative aspects, but the key is to use it in moderation.

Freshman Suzie Bae @suziebaethis done with school *opens up arms so wide they break off*

Sophomore Alex Cintron @Alex21CintronWonder how Madison feels about get-ting beaten by a bunch of nerds

Junior Sarah Falls @sfalls01i was gonna do powderpuff but like practices???? a physical????? sports????

Senior Laura Duke @lauradukeeeI will always love MLA headers for tak-ing up half the first page of an essay

TJ Tweets Students use Twitter as a forum for expression

Less than 1 hour

1-2 hours

3-4 hours

5+ hours

Students strike careful balance between work and play on social media

Daily Social Media UsagePercentage of students who spend a certain range of time daily on social media.

110 students responded to an Internet survey

Homework Search I’m Feeling Social

What should I do with my time???

4%

19%

33%

44%

“I use Facebook for study groups, and they are helpful when I forget homework. The drawback is that students can cheat or waste time

socializing.” - sophomore Abby Peterson

generati nge

Senior Jaidan Ali @dbroncs95*gets pulled over*cop: why were you going 55 in a 30?me: in all honesty, i have a homework assignment due at midnight#OffTheHook

november2013

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