News from the Creative Writing Club Dates To Remember 12/21/15 - Winter Concert, 7pm 12/24/15-1/1/16 - Winter Vacation

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1 PELHAM HIGH SCHOOL Dr. Dorothy Mohr, Principal Volume 4 Mr. Daniel Alexander, Assistant Principal News from the Creative Writing Club Season s Greetings from the Creative Writing Club! We have enjoyed a fruitful fall of weekly meetings. Our club convenes on Tuesdays from 2:30-3:30 in Room 105. ALL students, faculty and staff are welcome to join us as we write, share our writing, laugh and enjoy our time together! We are excitedly preparing for our first Holiday Advisory Writer s Open-Mic event to be held in the beautiful, bright, new PHS Connector. To date students are signing up to share original poetry, short stories and other works during the mid-day advisory event. Dates To Remember 12/21/15 - Winter Concert, 7pm 12/24/15-1/1/16 - Winter Vacation Creative Writing Club is also in the process of collecting original student writing, photography and sheet music as well as images of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art for the 2016 edition of our annual publication of the award-winning Pelham High School magazine of the arts, Ethereal Patter. Students interested in submitting should send their work to Ms. Nugent (jnugent@pelhamsd.org) or Ms. Nelson (sjnelson@pelhamsd.org). *********************** Personal Financial Planning 1/1/16 - New Year s Day 1/18/16 - No School Martin Luther King Day 1/25/16 - No School Teacher Workshop Day Keller Williams Realty real estate agent, Deborah Kruzel, visited students in Mrs. Dorval's Personal Financial Planning. Mrs. Kruzel talked about the home buying process and the additional costs involved in purchasing a home.

2 Personal Financial Planning cont. Allie Nault, Miss America Outstanding Teen 2016, visited Mrs. Dorval's Personal Financial Planning class to talk about investments! Allie has had an investment portfolio since she was 8 years old! She shared with the students the ways that she saves money (on clothes and coffee) so that she can invest in the stock market. A period of questions and answers followed. Mr. James Santo, CEO, Santo Insurance, Salem, New Hampshire visited Mrs. Dorval's Personal Financial Planning class on Tuesday, December 8. Mr. Santo talked about auto and home insurance as well as careers in the field. In addition, Mr. Santo shared his insights about interviewing. He talked about a recent college graduate he hired and what skill set and attitude he was looking for when hiring. A big thank you to Mr. Santo and the Greater Salem Chamber of Commerce for setting up the interview.

3 EdRising Virtual Campus at PHS The EdRising Virtual Campus is a dynamic, online community with one goal: to help students become great teachers. The students in the Teaching in the 21st Century class with Dr. Fox have joined the Educators Rising network. Students explore articles for their content of interest and watch videos that feature National Board Certified Teachers delivering high-quality instruction. The TED Talks and inspirational videos motivate students and excite discussion. With the Get Active channel, students select high-impact projects and topics of interest. Using a private discussion forum, students discuss content from the EdRising Virtual Campus and practice skill-building exercises for national competitions and eligibility for the Educators Rising Honor Society. Students in the class are currently beginning to research their topics of interest through Educators Rising resources: Lindsey--Does homework improve student performance? Morgan--How do student/teacher relationships affect school bullying? Samantha--How do teachers create a positive classroom climate? Rianna--Does standardized testing measure student learning? Amanda--Does public education prepare students with exceptionalities for careers? Jenya--How is language diversity (ELL and ESL) addressed in schools? These students complete their research projects with a defense of their topics outlined by a rubric designed by Southern New Hampshire University for this dual enrollment class. Lifeboat in the Classroom Deb Jarvis As our class is involved with reading Life of Pi, a lot of our discussion has centered around how large the lifeboat Pi is stranded in with a tiger (and initially a hyena, Zebra, and orangutan) actually is. While discussing the idea of size and relation to how much space a tiger would take up, my senior class discovered that the grey tiles in the front of Rm 103 is the exact length and width of the boat in Pi! This made everything come suddenly to life as the students realized exactly how small the lifeboat really is. There was an ensuing discussion as to how a tiger and a boy could coexist in such a small space and how much of the boat was covered with the tarp. It was a fortuitous accident of room design and colored tiles that nonetheless added a whole new dimension to the understanding of the book. Nice job to my Block D seniors for figuring it out!

4 Nxt Remote Control Challenge Our class had to build Lego robots that were controllable from a remote we created. The goal was to pick up a ball and score it in a goal and had five places to score, each valued at different point values. We competed against each other, one offense, one defense, to see who can get the most points. Each round was five minutes long and each team played against each other as both defense and offense. The Claw robot below won overall and was undefeated. The other robots fought well and the competition became something similar to battle bots. All three robots were different designs and controlled differently. Open Underwater ROV IN robotics Engineering over the course of the semester we are building a full scale underwater ROV. The most important part of the Open ROV. Project is the waterproofing. Without it, the robot wouldn t be able to be submerged in water while still protecting all of the electronic components from water damage due to leak. To waterproof the ROV, we used Epoxy on any holes that water would normally be able to get through. It can be used to strengthen any joints as well.

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