Classroom Spotlight

Miles Gevas

This month’s classroom spotlight is on Ms. Bertolucci’s Geometry class. They intend to use inclinometers to measure the height of trees and other things around campus. This is a useful skill to learn because if you’re ever in a field like engineering of forestry, you will need to measure buildings and/or trees.

They class will go all around the school finding the oldest trees then they will use their nifty little inclinometers, which by the way, were made in the shop to measure the trees. Using the angle of elevation from their line of sight to the top of the trees or other objects they will be able to determine how tall the object or tree is.

They plan to measure the following objects: the scoreboard in the gym, the flagpole in front of the school, Mr. Pettis’s shop building, the tree in front of Ms. B’s room, power pole in front of school, water tower by the bus barn, disco ball in cafeteria, and the height of Ms. B’s building. Then they must meet the following criteria for a conclusion:

1) present their findings to the class, in the form of a poster with drawings or a

    PowerPoint presentation.

2) write a one page summary of their own project, including what they have learned about using inclinometers.

By definition an inclinometer is an optic device for measuring elevation angles above horizontal. An inclinometer is usually a protractor, one washer, a heavy piece of paper, some tape, a twelve inch long piece of kite string and last but not least a drinking straw. Then you combine them all together to make the inclinometer that looks like a protractor with a straw on top and a washer hanging down on a string. To use one you start out by holding the inclinometer so that the straw is parallel to the ground. Then you slowly tilt the straw until you can see the very top of the object through the straw. After that, have a partner record the angle measure that the string passes through. Recall since you start the string at ninety degrees, you must subtract the recorded angle of measure from ninety to get the angle of elevation. Sounds like fun!

Prom Update

Deanna Torres

This years Masquerade Prom which was Saturday May 16^th, was great. The setting at the Fountain Grove was gorgeous, fancy, and romantic. Well romantic enough for the couples, and nice for those who just wanted to have a good time. The night was lit by Christmas lighting wrapped around the railing of the deck; where a lot of people spent their time when not dancing! The weather was PERFECT! Not hot or cold just right, although towards the end it got a little windy. Snacks such as

Midnight

Masquerade

pretzels, chips & dip, jolly ranchers, and M&M’s were provided, along with ice water. Dinner was not provided for the fact that prom took place in Santa Rosa; and people dined before coming to the prom and from what I have heard a lot of people did. There were chaperones there making sure nothing went wrong and that all was well. The adults were Mr. Fernandez, Mr. Carnation, Mrs. Hadden, Piedad Flores, Toriana Cordova’s father and his girlfriend. It was mentioned the day before that there was no freak dancing allowed. Of course at the beginning of the prom everyone was skeptical about starting to dance, but then they gained confidence. The variety of music was okay and the DJ seemed to repeat a lot of songs, but they played from hip-hop, reggeaton, Spanish, rock/metal, and a few love/slow songs. Along with the music there were videos playing on a projection screen of music, and us dancing. The DJ had brought along a video camera and set it up to where it would record us dancing and come up on the screen. Mr. Carnation indeed had to come on the “dance” floor when it got out of hand when the guys started mosh-pitting! Keynan Myers and Kevin Johnson were going at each other when a heavy metal song came on. I’m assuming that Mr. Carnation thought they were fighting, but then again maybe he just didn’t want them to get hurt. For instance, Diego Gonzalez got a bruise on his forehead! Once it came down to announcing who won the crown for the night everyone was nervous. The king and queen were, Joe Romero and Arithzi Rivera. The prince and princess were, Isaac Hale and Marcy

Flores. The court boy & girl were, Nolan Huck and Kelsie Jones. Sorry sophomores! After the announcement the DJ said that the winning couples had to dance a variety of different songs and whoever did the best won $20. As they started dancing Nolan & Kelsie gave up really quick. The prince and princess did the best and won $20. They also got a free picture taken. The outcome of prom was nice, I guess it could have been worse, it would have been a lot nicer if we had a lot of people attending.