Weekly Update 9/23

Dear NCHS Family,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful week. I am always impressed with the successful turnout at our parent programs. Please continue to check our PFA calendar and our school website for all of our upcoming programs planned.

Our students are excited to make NCHS a special place. We had a very large fan base at our last football game and I hope that our students and families continue to come out to support all of our teams in a safe and respectful way throughout the year.

The Summer Art Show is on display in our Main Lobby, please be sure to take a moment and see what our creative and talented students have done.

On Friday, September 30, we will hold our Club & Activity Fair in the Cafeteria for underclassmen and all new students to learn about our co-curricular opportunities. Instead of a special schedule, we will follow the usual Day D schedule. Freshmen will go with their class during period 4 and Sophomores will attend with their class during period 1. Upperclassmen new this year to NCHS are welcome during either period.

Alumni In the News

Dr. Stephen Quake, a NCHS graduate of the Class of 1987 and a professor of bioengineering and applied physics will co-lead the new Bay Area research collaboration called the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub along with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Please click here to see the fascinating work that a New Canaan graduate is doing!

Pictures from around NCHS:

Upcoming Events:

9/27 PFA Gr. 11: Managing Jr. Year Stress: Strategies and Tips - 9:30 Wagner Room

9/30 Student Club & Activity Fair - Underclassmen and new students

10/1 SAT Reasoning and Subject Tests

10/3 Rosh Hashanah, no school

Wishing you all the best,

Bill Egan

Department News:

English Department News: The academic year is already back in full swing. Last week, the school hosted our annual Open House, and met parents and guardians to provide an overview of our curriculum and classroom experience. Teachers discussed titles taught, our approach to writing instruction, and overall instructional philosophy. In anticipation of Open House, the English department was also busily updating and linking their web pages over the past week. Many a teacher persevered over the best photo to include in the department directory!

This week the 10th grade team is preparing to administer the first reading benchmark of the year. The assessment will take place over two days in English classes and provide a diagnostic picture of students reading that can help inform teachers’ instruction. The new benchmark will include a fiction and nonfiction excerpt in multiple choice format along with short-essay responses.

In classroom news, it wasn’t all smooth sailing though, as the inevitable hiccups of school life have already begun. Just ask this sophomore student in Mr. Remley’s class, who had to explain that the dog, did in fact, eat his homework!

In Ms. Nigro’s sophomore class, students engaged in a mini-lesson examining the difference between a topic and a theme in short stories by reviewing the children’s classic “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. Down the hall in Ms. Munson’s senior elective Sports in Literature, students are viewing 9 Innings from Ground Zero -- a documentary that examines the relationship between sports and community by following the Yankee’s 2001 playoff run.

Students in Ms. Phee’s Creative Writing Class created boxes that explored and exemplified their inner and outer characteristics, a project that will help them develop complex characters in their writing. After producing the boxes, they examined their peers’ creations in an attempt to hypothesize the owner of each box. The students’ guesses were much more accurate than Ms. Phee’s!

Math Department News: M1 Algebra II and M2 Algebra I classes used the website Kahoot, which allowed them to prepare for their upcoming assessments in a game-type format. M2 Algebra I students also worked in groups to create their own questions (for use by the entire class). The creation of these questions led to placing students in differentiated collaborative groups for preparation for their upcoming test. The Math Team had their first practice in preparation for the first FCML match in early October. Students in Multivariable Calculus played a match game where they were given 4 cards each having a different form of line in 3D; Vector Form, Parametric form, symmetric, and two points. They had to trade with other groups to match all their cards up correctly.

CTE Department News:

Business students in Miss Martinich's Business Principles classes learned to fill out job applications this week. Next, they will be crafting cover letters and resumes before searching for jobs or internships they'd be interested in applying for.

Students in Miss Martinich's AP Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) class are hard at work coding their first apps! AP CSP is the College Board's newest AP Exam. AP CSP introduces students to the foundational concepts of computer science and challenges them to explore how computing and technology can impact the world. With a unique focus on creative problem solving and real-world applications, AP CSP prepares students for college and career.

Below, AP CSP students doing paired programming

Tech Ed students in Mr. Zambarano’s Car class have completed a lesson on suspension and lubrication. They are currently working on comparison papers. Students must research two vehicles to compare. They must be in the same vehicle class and current model year, either 2016 or 2017.

In Yearbook class with Mr. Zambarano, students have come up with a theme for this year’s yearbook. They are now working on layout designs for each section that will correlate with the theme. Students are working with Adobe InDesign and Photoshop.

Students in Mr. Zambarano’s Digital Electronics class are about a quarter of the way through unit 1. They have learned Ohm's Law and Kirchoff's Voltage and Current Laws, know how to read a four band color resistor and spent a class period learning how to solder and de-solder breadboard components and wires. Students have constructed breadboards with simple series and parallel circuits and learned how to use a multimeter to read voltage, resistance and current. Yesterday the class had a lesson on Multisim, a simulation software, and now students will apply what they have learned in theory and practice to a software simulation. They will then reflect on the differences and similarities, pros/cons, between all three.

Introduction to Engineering and Design students just completed their first design challenge, Crush Me Not. Mr. Zambarano gave a lesson on the engineering design process that students use to solve their problem. In this case they were given 2 pieces of paper, a tablespoon of glue and 12 inches of ½ inch tape. The goal was to create an object which held the most weight when placed on top of it. There were a few other constraints on size but you get the jist of it. This year the top design held over 300lbs.

Woods Class worked on wood characteristics and its plane of reference, which includes the board layout, shrinkage, swelling, distortions, joinery, and wood identification. Today the class started going over hand tools used and identification.

Civil Engineering students worked on modeling architectural features. After researching an architectural style and presenting their knowledge they then chose a different style that interested them and created a model about a specific feature found within the style.

Web Design completed identifying the problem for their web design. This included filling and interviewing the one they are doing the site for to identify what will be needed and wanted. This week students started working on research. They are currently creating profiles of their users to get an aim for their sites.

In Game Design students just finished playing classic board/physical games. The games consisted of 1 player, 1 plus player, 2 player, 2 plus player, 3 plus player, and a large group (class). After playing all these games they analyzed what they preferred within a game to begin developing their own games.

Family and Consumer Sciences:

Child Development classes are preparing their team teaching lesson for the preschool. They are creating prototypes of the crafts, practicing reading their stories, and developing learning centers that correlate to their class themes. The preschool students will arrive next week for an open house and then preschool begins with 10 weeks of lesson. Child Development students will be helping and teaching in the preschool on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

The Foods and Nutrition students are getting ready to cook in the labs and will be working on the unit on Quick Breads. They are starting with dessert crepes and will move onto to Belgium waffles, muffins, and biscuits for strawberry shortcake.

Baking students prepared Sour Cream Fudge cookies and lemon biscottii for the Parent Open House last week. They are making Jordan Marsh Blueberry muffins and using digital scales to measure their ingredients. We have just covered material on the function of ingredients in baking and will move on to making custards and learning about the many functions of eggs in baking.

The Culinary Essentials class has started developing menus for Rams Café. They have made fresh marinara sauce and Chicken Marsala as they continue to develop knife skills, stove top cooking, and preparing chicken for sautéing.

TV Broadcasting - Students are busy editing their first project, a 30-second video on themselves. After learning how to shoot a good video with just their smartphone, students teamed up to record one another talking about who they are and what's important to them. Now, they are using Final Cut Pro to edit the video together with transitions, photos and music.

Advanced TV Broadcasting - NCTV just finished their 4th live broadcast, all which can be viewed on NCTV 78's Youtube channel. They also broadcast and streamed the first two home football games of the season.

It's not too late to order the 2016 Graduation on DVD. If you'd like a copy to keep forever, you can purchase one through School Cash Online.

Graphics - Students just finished their first assignment by creating a customized, personal matrix schedule. Now the class is learning about the 6 different typefaces and how they're used in professional publications.

Journalism - Courant staff is working in teams on the first wave of news and feature stories. Rookie reporters have already been in the field, guided by student reporters, to interview, take photos and record video for multimedia stories on topics ranging from NCHS beautification to the new school walking routes, among other stories. Senior executive editors redesigning the newspaper, adding features to the website nchscourant.com, and exploring different forms of journalism, like long-form reporting.