Reflections From Our Schools - Mount Sinai School Districtmtsinai.k12.ny.us/homepage/Home Page Links/DistrictO… · · 2010-12-09Students gave oral presen-tations to the class

Reflections From Our Schools

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE MOUNT SINAI UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT

MOUNT SINAI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Grades K – 4

Dr. John Gentilcore Ms. Linda Chase Principal Assistant Principal

Reflections From Our Schools

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE MOUNT SINAI UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Winter 2011 Volume 36 Issue 2

Hope for Haiti

T he Mount Sinai Elementary Fourth Grade Stu-dent Council kicked off their first project, “Hope for Haiti,” October 26th -28th. The Student Council will be joining eleventh grade student,

Thomas Maccabee, in his efforts to help with the recon-struction of an orphanage and medical clinic in Haiti. Haiti continues to be in a state of disrepair since the earth-quake on January 12, 2010. The representatives will be selling paper blocks for $1.00 in the cafeteria during lunch. The paper cinder blocks mirror the actual 100,000 cinder blocks that are needed for the reconstruction. The blocks will be adorned with the students name and dis-played on the cafeteria wall. Thomas is striving to meet a goal of 10,000 bricks for an examination room that when completed will be named after the Mt. Sinai School District. The Elementary School Student Council is looking forward to leading our students in “brick building” for the citizens of Haiti.

The Fourth Grade Student Council pictured with Mrs. Hendry and Mrs. Sheedy, Club Advisors

Turkey Tales

The students in Mrs. Wink’s second grade class had a terrific time reading stories about Thanks-giving. Each student chose a fic-tion or nonfiction book to read and then designed a poster about the story. Students gave oral presen-tations to the class about their

posters. They learned about the Mayflower, Pilgrims, Na-tive Americans, and the first Thanksgiving. The Turkey Tales were a wonderful way to share what they had learned. Standing proudly in front of their posters are Mrs. Wink’s Second Grade students.

Mount Sinai Mirror 2

MOUNT SINAI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Outdoor Education Program

T he third grade students at Mt. Sinai Elementary School have the opportunity to participate in the Outdoor Education Program run by BOCES. For the first trip many

of our third grade students had the opportunity to visit the seashore and estuary at Sunken Meadow State Park and Preserve. The children par-ticipated in a seashore scavenger hunt and examined changing tides. In addition, the naturalist at the park led the classes in a seining activity, where the children got to examine firsthand, many of the creatures that make long island estuaries their home.

Pumpkin Project

How many seeds does the average pumpkin have? Does a pumpkin sink or float? Do you weigh more or less that a pumpkin? The students in Mrs. Christiano’s kinder-garten class can answer all of these questions and more about pumpkins. As “pumpkin scientists” the students worked in small groups to learn as much as they could about pumpkins. The students learned that scientists rely on all five senses to gather information. At the end of the project the students completed a wonderful book filled with pumpkin data.

Jacqueline Flannery, Reid Mac Avoy and Michael Novellino

Live Webcast at Mt. Sinai Elementary

O n Wednesday, October 29th, Scholastic.com broadcasted a live webcast to schools featuring an inter-view with country music star Taylor Swift. As part of both their 90th year celebration and Read Now campaign, Tay-lor answered questions about how reading has inspired her as a writer, discussed her songwriting process, and talked about the books that have served as an inspiration when writing her songs. Mrs. Spano’s 2nd grade class participated in this special event. Students were inspired by Taylor’s love for poetry, her suggestion for writing a letter first to inspire ideas for a song, and how Taylor has even written songs because of her love for certain books (her song Love Story is inspired by Shakespeare’s Ro-meo and Juliet). After the webcast, the classroom dis-cussion included ideas on how we all can become better writer’s, how students look forward to learning how to write different forms of poetry, and how all of us have a writer inside of us waiting to be heard!

SKOOB

Mrs. Samson’s second grade class hosted Skoob the Shelf Elf for a week. Skoob is originally from an Elemen-tary School in Richland Hills, Texas. As he “travels” around the country visiting classrooms, children across America learn about each other’s schools, communities and even cultures. On December 1st, Skoob arrived at the Mount Sinai Elementary School and celebrated the first day of Hanukkah with us. He tried latkes and apple-sauce – and even spun a dreidel. During Skoob’s visit, Mrs. Samson’s class skyped with a class at the Binion Elementary School in Texas.

(SKOOB Continued on pg. 3)



We learned many things about their weather and we taught them all about Hanukkah! We then read some of the Hot Chocolate cinquain poems we had written to our new Texan friends. We enjoyed our time with Skoob and were sad to see him go, but we know that the children at his next school in West Virginia are going to have a won-derful time visiting with Skoob.

(SKOOB Continued fm. pg. 2)

Vegetable Skeleton

I n the month of October, the kindergartners in Ms. Fahey’s class listened to the story Bones and

then made a vegetable skeleton in celebration of Hallow-een. We used a head of lettuce for the “skull”, mushrooms as the “spine”, carrots and celery as the “ribs” and broc-coli for the “joints”. When the skeleton was complete, we enjoyed every last bite of our spooky - and very healthy snack!

Author Visit

T his November, during our own Children’s Book Week, local author Brian Heinz, visited the Mount Sinai Elementary School. Mr. Heinz who is a former teacher, has written numerous children's books about nature and wildlife. Based on his extensive travels throughout the most remote parts of the United States, Mr. Heinz pre-sented three assemblies to our students sharing his pas-sion for writing and his love of nature. A true storyteller, Mr. Heinz captivated his audience with tales of Native Americans, sledding across the frozen Alaskan tundra (ask your child to tell you that story) and what it was like growing up with a mom who loved to read! That passion for the written word was explored further on the next day of his visit when Mr. Heinz conducted writer's workshops with our fourth grade students. In a highly engaging way, Mr. Heinz walked students through the writing process, encouraging them to use their senses to observe the world around them and to journal daily. Students were thrilled to have the opportunity to get to know this author in a very real way and want to thank the PTO for their very generous gift in supporting this program. To learn more about Mr. Heinz and his books, feel free to visit his website: http://www.brianheinz.com .

( Author Visit Continued on pg. 4)



( Author Visit Continued fm pg. 3)

Guest Author Mr. Heinz with students

Bookmark Contest

T o further celebrate the Mount Sinai’s Children’s Book Week, the library sponsored a school-wide book-mark contest. Using this year’s theme, “Books are Fun! students were asked to design an original bookmark which was then judged on clarity, use of color, originality, and creative use of theme. Judged by Dr. Gentilcore and other “celebrity” judges, it was agreed that each student’s entry was terrific! After much deliberation, the final book-marks chosen as the best of the best were:

Kindergarten - Danielle Dua, Olivia Lupo & Matteo Spotorno

Grade 1 - Nicholas Guzzi, Olivia Pitisi & Michael Russo

Grade 2 - Daniella Graffeo, Matt Graffeo & Emily Johnson

Grade 3 - Jillian Koenig, Aaron Mitchell & Emily Mlyn

Grade 4 - Katie Gudzik, Margaret Kopcienski & Victoria Samour

Winning bookmarks were reproduced on card stock at SAV-ON Printing in Mount Sinai (Thank you Sav-On) and printed for every student. All bookmarks were displayed in the hallways and on library windows and enjoyed by all during the entire month of November!

The picture above shows our 4th grade students standing by the winning designs in the library windows.

Starry Knights

T he Mount Sinai Elementary Schools second grade students recently completed a unit on Vincent Van Gogh with art teacher Christine Holden. Using his work “Starry Night” as an example, students learned how the choice of color can create a feeling and how a single brushstroke can create movement. Students were then asked to write a poem to describe the piece they were creating and its relationship to Van Gogh. Using multiple media sources, students beautifully crafted their own starry nights which are currently displayed along with their poems throughout the lobby of the Elementary School.

Grace D'Angio, Kasie Clark, Gabriella Acquafredda



Pal Breakfast

T he Mt. Sinai Elementary Fourth Grade Student Council held their Second Annual Holiday

Breakfast on Monday, December 6th. The student repre-sentatives and the fire prevention senior citizen pals were able to meet together in the library to share some break-fast goodies, presents and smiles. This program was in-troduced to the school by Janis Henderson, retired from the district and longtime Mount Sinai Fire Department member. The fire prevention pals are from a local Mt. Sinai community and our students send them a fire pre-vention tip at the beginning of each month. Typically, they end up becoming pen pals for the school year and some even stay in touch long after our students leave the Elementary School. This year the pals have signed up to sell SMENS in the cafeteria in order to help our students raise money for Ronald McDonald House and other chari-ties. The pals are planning to meet again in the spring and are already looking forward to it! Thank you Fire Pre-vention Pals for joining us.

Fire Dept. Poster Contest

As part of fire prevention month, the Mount Sinai Fire Department sponsored a Fire Safety Contest opened to all Mount Sinai students. Winners of the contest were Nicole Koepper and Jordan DeBlasio, who received cer-tificates from Fire Chief Marino for the posters they had submitted on fire safety. Congratulations, girls!

As part of the Mount Sinai High School Family and Consumer Sciences Department, students who enroll in the Parenting class become liaisons for the Junior Achievement High School Heroes Program. Junior Achievement is a program that promotes active learning and brings theory to life. Over the last two months, high school students in this program have worked weekly with the Mount Sinai Elementary School Second Graders teaching them about “Our Community”. Through interac-tive lessons - as well as rap songs, students have ex-plored how communities work, how tax dollars are used, and how local government is structured. They even voted for a “mayor”!

Junior Achievement

(Junior Achievement Continued on pg. 6)

Contest winners receive their certificates



By applying varied brushstrokes in different directions an artist can capture a variety of images. After an exercise of painting varied brushstrokes on paper, students were asked to find the hidden images. Victoria Sanderson was able to capture an image that appears to look like birds flying in the sky. Pastels were added for emphasis.

This year the district was a recipient of a grant from Keyspan for the Junior Achievement program and on No-vember 18th, our second grade students were presented with certificates from Bob Keller of Keyspan and Council-woman Bonner from the Town of Brookhaven. This has been a wonderful partnership between the Ele-mentary School and the High School. Many of the High School students are interested in a teaching career and this opportunity to work directly with younger children has been a valuable and enriching experience for all. Thank you to Mrs. Amato, Dr. Gentilcore and Mrs. Chase for all of their efforts in facilitating this program.

(Junior Achievement Continued fm pg. 5)

The Mount Sinai “Green Team” is continuing to find ways to help our school take care of our planet. Not only do we recycle paper, bottles and cans but special bins are available to recycle ink cartridges and cell phones. The money that is collected when these items are returned helps to fund on-going projects for the Courtyard Club. So during this holiday season when you receive those brand new phones and or printers, please think of us and donate your old items - and we will turn them into seeds, plants and flowers! And be on the look-out for a district wide Beach Clean-Up day in March, 2011 as to-gether we celebrate Planet Earth!

Green Team

Lindsay Stancampiano began her music studies early by attending the Mt. Sinai summer music program. She has shown great proficiency on the cello, and her hard work and practice have been evident since the start. Lindsay has also proven to be a leader in her section in mini-Orchestra.


MOUNT SINAI MIDDLE SCHOOL Grades 5 – 8

Mr. Peter Pramataris Ms. Elizabeth Hine Principal Assistant Principal

Thanksgiving Food Drive

N ovember 2nd through No-vember 10th, the Community Ser-vice Club and Community Out-reach Club held Mount Sinai Mid-dle School’s annual Thanksgiving food drive. More than 600 families requested assistance this Thanks-giving. "The need is increasing,” said a Long Island Care Organization representative. This event offered our stu-dents an opportunity to involve themselves in our commu-nity that benefited those in need. The students solicited donations of food which included: boxed mashed pota-toes and macaroni and cheese, packets of gravy, canned yams, corn, peas, green beans, canned fruit, cranberry sauce, boxed pie crusts, canned pie filling, stuffing and rice, and much more! "It bothers me to see homeless people, so I want to help," said seventh grader Ray Krahm. All classes participated in this year’s success. The students displayed enthusiasm and compassion while they filled seven, four foot boxes with food items amount-ing to approximately 1,000 pounds. The food was do-nated to the Long Island Cares Organization located in Bohemia, New York. These items have been wrapped in gift baskets for families in our area with a goal to provide a festive holiday dinner. The club members learned a valuable lesson, “Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.” ~W.J. Cam-eron.

Eighth Graders Take the Math Challenge

Congratulations to all students who participated in the American Math Challenge. The American Math Challenge is an online competition that takes two days to complete. Students must answer timed arithmetic challenges against other students from around the world. Mount Si-nai Middle School entered twenty three students into the competition this year. A special congratulations to Mat-thew Thompson (8th grade) who placed in the top 100 students in the nation!

Matthew Thompson with Ms. Hine, Ms. DeGiorgio and Mr. Pramataris


MOUNT SINAI MIDDLE SCHOOL

National Junior Honor Society Adopts a Family

M embers of the Middle School National Junior Honor Society worked hard this autumn to brighten the holidays for those less fortunate. To raise money to adopt a family this holiday season, members dedicated several after-noons to make cookie jar kits which contained all the nec-essary dry ingredients to bake chocolate chip, M&M, oat-meal chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. Over 12 dozen kits were created to be sold at the Mt. Sinai PTO Craft Fair that took place at the Middle School on Novem-

ber 20th. With an over-whelming response, the National Junior Honor So-ciety sold out of cookie jars kits before the day was over and raised over $300 to help their cause.

Suffolk Reading Council 2009 - 2010 Creative Writing & Art Cover Contest

“Pink Hair Day”

O n Thursday, October 28th, 2010 the “Pink Hair for Hope” fundraiser was an overwhelming

success with both students and staff participating. The middle school cafeteria was full of excitement as the stu-dents had pink hair extensions attached to their own hair. Thank you to Mrs. Valerie DeRosa and the staff from “Hot Hair Inc.” for organizing this event and contributing 100% of the money collected. The day resulted in an eighteen hundred dollar donation to The National Breast Cancer Foundation. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, we hope she will continue to return next year for this fun and worthy cause.

Conor Burns, Spero Calmas, Cole Adams and Samuel Kessler pictured with their pink hair.

Students line up for pink hair

Student Council Fall 2010

T he Mount Sinai Middle School’s Student Council has been hard at work this fall with dances and fund rais-

ing activities. On October 22nd, Student Council hosted the First Annual Halloween “Spook-tacular.” Approxi-mately 125 students from 7th and 8th grade danced the evening away dressed in their Halloween best. A costume contest was held and second and third place winners won ITunes gift cards. The grand prize, a Lowes Cinema gift card, was awarded to Hallie Devlin for her adorable cos-tume. She was dressed as a washing machine complete with its own mini Tide!

(Student Council Continued on. pg. 9)

Cert. of Participation for Poetry Grade Teacher

Erin Delaney 5 Ms. Massano

Victoria Szempruch 5 Ms. Morgan

Nicole Magro 6 Ms. Petrola

Meghan Walker 6 Ms. Birbiglia

Alyssa Muscarello *second place poetry winner*

7 Mr. O’Leary

Zaineb Qureshi 7 Mr. O’Leary

Kyle Cullin 8 Ms. Connor

Haleigh Lyons 8 Mr. O’Leary



The week of November 8th, Student Council coordinated the 2nd Annual “Turkey Drive.” Paper feathers and tur-keys were sold during lunch periods. The large paper feathers cost $2.00 and the small turkeys cost a $1.00. Each grade had a large paper turkey to dress. Efforts by all were quite successful. The student body raised $300 to help needy families in the area with their Thanksgiving meals. The 5th and 6th grade winning homerooms were Ms. Massano (5th), Ms. Morgan (6th), Ms. Sing (7th) and Mr. Foster (8th). The 5th and 6th grade homerooms en-joyed a delicious pizza luncheon, while the 7th and 8th grade homerooms enjoyed a wonderful bagel breakfast. Congratulations to all who participated.

(Student Council Continued fm. pg. 8)

Pictures from the “Spook-tacular.” Halloween dance

PTO Craft Fair

O n Saturday, November 20th, the PTO held their annual craft fair throughout the hallways of Mount Sinai Middle School. Although many community members are familiar with the event, they are not aware of the planning, preparation and hard work dedicated to making the day a success. Along with many PTO members and middle school teachers, student volunteers from several of our clubs devoted their Friday afternoon to helping the PTO prepare the building with signs, decorations and floor plans. Students dedicated their Saturday morning to help vendors move their merchandise from their vehicles to their designated tables within the school, while others helped clean up and bring goods out of the school and back to their cars. Thank you, students, for all of your hard work, as this event would not have run so smoothly without you!

Ms. Venaski and Ms. Meehan pictured with students at the craft fair



November Student of the Month

Student Subject Ashley Petrizzo Physical Education Amanda Valente Music Konnor Walters Grade 5 Courtney Graham Grade 6 Jordana Corcione Science Alexander Mule Technology Justine Quan Art Vanessa Repperger Family & Consumer Sciences Michael Shen English Language Arts Nicole Tacopina Spanish Tristan Barton Social Studies Molly Presser Math

November Citizen of the Month

Student

Grade

Elisa Tarquinio 5 George Tawfik 5 John Barbieri 6 James Catterson 6 Andrew Fiore 6 Matthew Eisenblaetter 7 Dimitri Lakios 7 Anthony Abbondanza 8 Thomas Cope 8 Kayla Olsen 8 Jenna Shackles 8

Above are photos of art work done by students in Mr. Frazier’s class as part of 5th and 6th grade Character Education


MOUNT SINAI HIGH SCHOOL Grades 9 – 12

Mr. Matthew J. Dyroff Assistant Principal

Mr. Robert Grable Principal

Mr. Chris Heil Assistant Principal

Mount Sinai Math Teams Coached by Gary Kulik

C ongratulations to the Mount Sinai High School Math Team on their first place finish at the Octo-

ber 25 and November 15 meets. Both meets were well attended with more than thirty students par-ticipating in each contest. Leading scorers for the year include Ray-mond Spataro, Emily Ong, Kenneth Gunasekera and Erik Hansen. The ninth grade Math Team also won their first two meets of the year. The October 26 and November 16 meets were well attended with twenty-five ninth grade students participating in each. Congratulations to all the students that have been par-ticipating. The future looks great for Mount Sinai Math.

Athletes Helping Athletes

The Student-Athlete Leadership Program serves as Mount Sinai High School’s representatives in promoting athletics as a positive alternative to substance abuse and other unhealthy behaviors. Student-athlete leaders work with elementary school students to promote athletics as a positive alternative to substance abuse and assist in im-plementing a character education program. On November 20, the Athletes Helping Athletes (AHA) went to Cedar Beach to participate in the “Polar Plunge” to benefit the New York Special Olympics. On November 30, the group visited the elementary school to speak to students about the program, and what the AHA follow-up visits will entail.

This year’s AHA members are:

Frank Abbondanza Shannon Burns Marisa Colacino Jamie Corbett Elizabeth Debski Caleigh Dolese Julia Dooley Matthew Esposito Jordan Beth Fiore Caroline Fitzgerald Brian Foley James Gallo Anthony Grippe Jessica Grippe Tucker Hadgraft

Erik Hansen Patrick Hogan Lindsay Hogan Zachary Kollmer Kristina Ly Chad Marino Lauren McEvoy Connor McPartland Eric Moosbrugger Sarah O'Brien Dhaneshwar Paray Amanda Petrizzo Megan Presser Ryan Reddy Alexandra Rose

Samantha Sapienza Lauren Sciarrotto Stephanie Sheehan Jay Shlimbaum Danielle Spears Marco Spotorno Connor Stroh Jake Tabile Alyssa Tobin Joseph Turek Janie Turek Marina Venezia Joseph Wittpenn

History Club News

T he Mount Sinai High School History Club visited the middle school on Tuesday November 2, to

give tutorials on the history and significance of Veterans Day. Members of the History Club, Keeley Rice, Kaitlin Swiatocha, Aylin Erdogan, Emily Ong, Corinne Gentile, Kimberly Guise, Lauren Scanlon, Samantha Loh, Joanna Bebber, Danielle Beier, and Nicole Stasiewicz, along with Mr. McHugh spoke in the seventh and eighth grade social

studies classes giving the mid-dle school students an in-depth look into the reason why we celebrate this holiday. The day’s events included a visual presentation, a question and answer session and the creation of Veterans Day cards that were shipped to our ser-vice members in Iraq and Af-ghanistan, as well as the local VFW Hall in Port Jefferson.


MOUNT SINAI HIGH SCHOOL

Mount Sinai High School Thanksgiving Food Drive

T he Mount Sinai High School History Club ran its annual Thanksgiving Food Drive again this year from November 15 through November 19. As in the past, donations were collected during home-

rooms, with Mr. Read and Ms. Meehan’s homerooms col-lecting the most. This year, we collected over 500 items which were donated to the Mount Sinai Con-gregational Church to assist their food pantry in helping those from our community in need. In addi-tion, the Family and Consumer Science Club, advised by Ms. Amato, baked pumpkin pies and created gift baskets that were do-nated along with food items to the VIBS Battered Women’s Shelter.

Fall Blood Drive

The fall blood drive, sponsored by the Peer Leaders and Student Council, was a great success. On November 3, seventy-seven students and staff gave the “gift of life” by donating blood. A number of other students volun-

teered to donate, but were turned down for various rea-sons including a new weight requirement and prior travel to certain countries. The New York Blood Center needs close to 2,000 donors each day and often runs short. Thanks to those who donated this November, over two-hundred and sixteen people will benefit from this great gift. The Student Council and Peer Leaders, along with the Mount Sinai Teachers’ Asso-ciation will hold another blood

drive in the spring. The tentative date is set for April 28, 2011 and all are welcome to donate.

Guidance Information You should have received a Mount Sinai High School Guidance Bulletin in the mail. This bulletin will contain pertinent information regarding such topics as Naviance, PSAT/ACT Explore exams, and SAT I/II exam dates. In addition, the bulletin will also be posted on Mount Sinai High School’s website.

This bulletin has been designed to keep you abreast of the resources/information available to you through Mount Sinai High School’s Guidance Depart-ment. Please take time to review this valuable informa-tion.

NY Islander Workshop Wednesday, November 17, 2010

T he Sports and Entertainment Class at Mount Sinai High School recently attended a three-hour workshop at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. It was a won-derful opportunity for students to experience firsthand how two industries collaborate (sports & entertainment) when organizing over one hundred and sixty-five events throughout the year. Students from the following busi-ness classes were invited: Sports and Entertainment Marketing, Career and Financial Management and Future Business Leaders of America. Presentations included the NY Islanders Executive Management Team. A group of executives spoke of the importance of group sales and how charity work is an in-tegral component to the organization. The Director of Public Relations explained the challenge of dealing with media that often over extends its’ invitation as well as limi-tations. The remaining executive groups shared their knowledge of marketing, sponsorships and the impor-tance of internships. In addition, the students had the opportunity to get a “Behind the Scenes” tour of how the facility operates, which included attendance at an Island-ers practice session. Students were also given a ticket to

that evening’s game. This experience provided an oppor-tunity for students pursuing a career in the business sector with a vast amount of information to consider and ex-plore. Students are commended on their participation and attentiveness.


Pictured above is the 2010 - 2011 Biochem SMARTteam at Stony Brook University. Members are Nicholas O’Mara, Camille Jwo, Thomas Bundy, Lani Kai Ritter and Kenneth Gunasekera.


Mount Sinai High School Hosts the International Ocean Beach

Cleanup at Cedar Beach

M ount Sinai High School organized the Interna-tional Coastal Cleanup (ICC) at Cedar Beach this year. Over sixty-five students from the high school participated in this years’ Cedar Beach Cleanup on Saturday, October 23, 2010. Mount Sinai High School was posted on the American Littoral Society’s (ALS) website as the ICC Steward for Cedar Beach. Several community members thanked the group and contacted the Town of Brook-haven with their gratitude. The annual event which is organized by the Lei Ku-leana Club allows students to earn up to four hours of community service and is sponsored by the ALS as part of the International Coastal Cleanup. The ICC includes more than 400,000 volunteers from seventy-five countries and collects more than a ton of debris from our local Long Island shores. Our students’ collection this year, as col-lated by senior Lani Kai Ritter, included thirty-nine bags of garbage with over forty-five hundred items, including 1,626 cigarette butts and entangled animals (raccoon, sea gull and rat). All collated data was then sent to the ICC for the international publication of the 2010 beach cleanup. Our students are commended for their efforts while the biota of Long Island Sound thanks them!

Pictured above are Trash Collectors Rebecca Choi, Samantha Loh, Catherine Douglas, Lani Kai Ritter, Crystal Michaelides,

Emily Ong, Farjahan Chowdhury, Kevin Hu, Andrew Coffey and Oliver Mizrahi.

Students Creating 3-D Proteins with Stony Brook University

T he 2010 Biochem SMARTteam (Students Modeling A Research Topic) program commenced this year

with four fall meetings at Stony Brook University. Sopho-mores Camille Jwo and Nick O’Mara joined junior Tom Bundy and seniors Ken Gunasekera and Lani Kai Ritter in constructing a qualifier outer surface protein (Opc) lo-cated on Neisseria meningitides. The protein enables the bacteria to attach to epithelial cells causing meningitis in humans. Unlike past years when the molecules were synthesized by the Center for BioMolecular Modeling at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, this year’s models will be constructed at the newly acquired facility at Stony Brook University. The Biochem SMARTteam program is coordinated through Joan Kiely, Director of the Biotech-nology Teaching Lab, at the Center for Science and Math Education at SUNY-Stony Brook. Mount Sinai High School has been invited to participate in this program for four years and is now developing a research protein which will be constructed in the spring. Juniors Kyle Capobianco-Hogan, Christina Sancho, Emily Paolone, Joey Giordano and Keeley Rice have been constructing a toober 3-D model of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) protein this fall under the direction of their A.P. Biology teacher, Ms. Nau-Ritter. The model when completed will be entered into the Pro-tein Challenge at Stony Brook University. The students used a computer-imaging site (Jmol) to visualize EGFR from a research article in the Protein Database (PDB). Their model included the anti-cancer drug Tarceva bonded to the EGFR protein. The EGFR protein is a transmembrane protein involved in several cancers found in humans, including breast and lung cancers. Good luck to our students in their December competi-tion.



The Family Man

M ount Sinai High School’s fall drama production, The Family Man, featured senior Michaela Pawluk and sopho-more Dylan Whelan as Ellen and Bill Cahill, a couple who grudgingly switch their traditional roles of husband and wife, yet come to realize that they are both happier and more efficient in their new roles. The comedy also fea-tured seniors Louis DiPaolo, Megan McCaffrey, Marie Pierce, juniors Alexandra Salerno, Danielle Dominici, and sophomores Hannah Pawluk, Nicole Mastrorocco, Sean Sullivan, and Michael Giordano. Senior Caroline D’An-gelo acted as assistant director to Ms. Sarah Zamorski, while senior Aveary Menze acted as crew chief, assisting producers Ms. Kerri Weinstein and Mr. Joseph Cossack.

Mount Sinai High School’s Production of The Family Man

Advanced Placement and

The Advanced Placement Environ-mental Science (APES.) and Marine Sci-ence classes performed scientific studies in the Peconic River estuary on Thursday, October 28. More than seventy students studied onboard the Atlantis Explorer where plankton tows, crab traps, fish seines and visual observations enabled students to iden-tify various Long Island biota. Students studied salt marsh and rocky beach habitats during a stop at Birch Beach in the Hubbard County Park. Mr. Chase’s Marine Science class also visited the Atlantis Marine Aquarium in Riverhead while the two APES classes were out sampling on the river. Mrs. Nau-Ritter’s APES classes performed tests on various chemical and physical parameters to collate the data into an extensive field report on the estuary. They observed trends in the data from the Peconic River mouth to sites away from the town. The results will be used throughout the year in preparation for the Advanced Placement exam.

October 2010 Students of the Month

Subject Name Grade Art Katelyn Rowe 11 Business Lindsey Waite 10 Citizenship Nicholas Scharrer 11 Computers Thomas Bundy 11 English Sarah Dooley 10 Family & Consumer Science Rebecca Kuypers 12 Foreign Language Kimberly Guise 12 Health Elyssa Geer 11 Math Jessica L'Hommedieu 11 Music Claire Kostic 12 Physical Education Gavin Raffloer 10 Science Ryan Kubik 10 Social Studies Emily Ong 12 Technology Andrew Hagenberger 11

November 2010 Students of the Month

Subject Name Grade Art William Steele 12 Business Amanda Petrizzo 11 Citizenship Joseph Sorrentino 11 Citizenship Erin Lederle 12 Computer Matthew Zotto 10 English Joseph Governale 11 Family & Consumer Science Ryan Abselet 10 Foreign Language Jessica Wellhausen 9 Health Thomas Bund 11 Math Sarah Abrahamson 10 Music Michaela Pawluk 12 Physical Education Connor McPartland 12 Science Ryan Reddy 11 Social Studies Lucas Blom 11 Technology Roland Wimmer 9


MOUNT SINAI HIGH SCHOOL MUSIC & ART Mr. Stephen Mantone, Music & Applied Arts Director

MUSIC HONOR SOCIETY HOLDS INDUCTION

T he Mt. Sinai High School Chapter of the Tri-M Music Honor Society held its annual induction

ceremony on Saturday, November 6 in the High School Auditorium. Featured at the ceremony were presenta-tions by this year’s officers: Claire Kostic, President; Michaela Pawluk, Vice President; Emily Ong, Secretary; Aylin Erdogan, Treasurer; Megan McCaffrey and Saman-tha Loh, Historians. Students from Band, Chorus and Orchestra presented performances. The new inductees are Thomas Bundy, Gabriella Car-bonara, Sophia Chianese, Rebecca Choi, Caroline Custo-dio, Maranda Diamond, Louis DiPaolo, William Dwyer, Brian Foley, Brandon Franza, Elyssa Geer, Megan Presser, Stephanie Romeo, Alexandra Salerno, Marina Venezia and Sean Viscount.

MOUNT SINAI STUDENTS IN SPOTLIGHT

F ourteen Students from the Mount Sinai School District have been selected to participate in the Long Is-land String Festival Association’s annual All-County Festi-val to be held on January 21-23 for grades 5-7 and Febru-ary 4-6 for grades 8-12. The students were selected through a highly competitive process based on last year’s NYSSMA Solo Festival scores and teacher recommenda-tions. Selected from grades 5-7 are Claire Cai, Ross DiBetta, Noreen Guilfoyle, Caroline Hoeg, Emily Mantone, Madeline Prunty, Samuel Ritter and Michael Shen. Se-lected from grades 8-12 were Caroline Custodio, Ethan Donowitz, Emily Ong, Kyle Cullin, Erika Mani and Keegan Sabo.

“CABARET” COMES TO MT. SINAI HIGH SCHOOL

The Mount Sinai High School Music Department will be presenting

“Cabaret” on

March 3, 4 & 5, 2011 at 7:30 P.M. in the high school auditorium,

North Country Road, Mt. Sinai. Tickets are $15.00 for adults and $7.00 for students

(senior citizens may reserve free tickets for the Thursday evening performance). For information or to reserve tickets, call 870-2882.


MOUNT SINAI HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS Mr. Scott Reh, Athletic Director

Booster Club Blog WRESTLEMANIA is coming to Mt. Sinai on Tuesday, January 7th. More information to follow.

The Race is on! The Booster Club’s popular event, NIGHT AT THE RACES is scheduled for Friday, January 21, 2011. Buy your tickets beforehand. Tables go very fast. There is always plenty of good food and lots of fun. If you haven’t gone yet, put a table together with a group of friends. You won’t be disappointed. The Mt. Sinai Booster Club wishes everyone a very happy and healthy holiday season.

Mr. Grable and Mr. Reh pictured with the award winners

Award for Academic and Athletic Excellence

Some graphics used in this publication from www.animationfactory.com

IMPORTANT DATES Dec. 22 Emergency Preparedness drill 20 min. earlier dismissal Dec . 23-31 Winter Recess - no school Jan . 17 Martin Luther King Day - no school Jan. 26 HS American Music Concert 7:30 pm HS Aud. Jan. 27 “POPS” Concert 7:30 HS Aud. Jan. 28 End of 2nd marking period K-12 Feb. 1 Grade 8 Social Studies Exam Feb. 1 All-District String Festival 7:30 pm HS Aud. Feb. 21-25 Mid-Winter Recess - no school

Documents

Reflections From Our Schools - Mount Sinai School Districtmtsinai.k12.ny.us/homepage/Home Page Links/DistrictO… · · 2010-12-09Students gave oral presen-tations to the class