Due to a snow day, students were not able to celebrate Pi Day on March 14th as planned. The annual event, which allows students in the middle school to compete to show who knows the most decimal places of the important number, will be postponed a week to April 4. Last year current ninth grader OIiver Stevens won the top honors, followed by current eighth grader Mihir Patel. Patel is hard at work looking to best his personal record, but he will definitely have competition from younger students as well. The winners will get to sample delicious pies made by faculty members and will also get to toss whipped cream pies in the face of their teachers.
Last week fifth graders took part in a trip to the Building Museum. The annual event combines elements of history and math, as students consider various tenets of design. There were two activities at the Building Museum: Geodesic Dome and Architecture 101. Two groups built geodesic domes about 6 feet tall. In Architecture 101, the other two groups sketched pictures of ceramics to learn about different perspectives architects us to share their ideas. Students designed a floor plan for an imaginary client. They got to make a model of the floor plan with card stock and lots of tape. These hands-on experiences give them a concrete view of the decisions that artists, engineers, designers, and architects must make in their daily jobs.
Washington Latin’s theater production of In the Heights premiers Thursday, with a show at 7pm, plus a show at 7pm on Friday, and shows Saturday at 2 and 7pm. The play is a story of a close-knit community in Washington Heights. The narrator Usnavi tells about the romantic, financial, and family woes of the community, in a show filled with dance, modern slang, and upbeat music. It premiered in New York in 2006, off-Broadway and eventually went to Broadway. The play, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame, tells the story of all aspects of the American Dream, including a family’s hope to be able to pay for expensive private college. The play stars seniors Ned Yarsky, Maggie Dalzell and Tabatha Smith, junior Nate Crystal, freshman Will Geist, and eighth grader Ketan Mampara.
Senior Jenesis Duran won the UNC-Chapel Hill Morehead-Cain Scholarship, a first for a Washington Latin student. The award includes a full ride to the college, including tuition, room, board, books, laptop, and supplies, and also includes funding for four summer experiences in the areas of outdoor leadership, public service, inquiry and exploration, and private enterprise. Duran had to submit her application for the scholarship and to UNC for admission back in October before all of her other peers were submitting applications and then go through a series of online, recorded interviews, and this past week, was flown to NC to complete her final interviews on campus. The scholarship committee looks for scholarship, leadership, character, and physical vigor. Though the number varies from year to year, an average of 60 scholarships are awarded annually, and just over half of them each year go to NC residents. Duran is active in Model U.N., and traveled to Switzerland in 2014 to complete scientific research after winning an award at the D.C. STEM fair her freshman year.
The Upper School’s seven teams of ninth grade students nabbed numerous top awards at the city wide DC STEM Fair. at Dunbar High School. In the area of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Jakai McIlwain and Mia Wilson earned second place for their evaluation of the physiologic effects of E Cigarettes and their tobacco analogues and a Merit Award in the Public Health Service Award. In the Earth and Environmental Sciences category, Owen Fox-Whelpton earned first place for testing artificial and natural turfs for heavy metal contaminants and Joseph Claire earned second place for his study of rain barrel water quality vs. environmental factors in Takoma Park. Claire also earned first place for the Federal Water Quality Association Award and Fox-Whelpton snagged third place in both the Geological Society of Washington award and the Public Health Service Award. In the Physical Energy category, Harry Hirsch and Benny Weinberger earned first place for their study of field strength of Solenoids vs voltage. In the materials science category, Sara Auriemma earned first place for testing the effectiveness of food additives on meringue stability. These students were advised on their research by physics teachers Mr. Alpert and Mr. Torrence. Meanwhile, in the middle school citywide STEM Fair, sixth graders Liam Murphy and Owen Doherty won first place for studying bridge angles and decomposition. Sixth graders Adelaide Pfueffer and Meerabela Kempf won 3rd place for their study of salty ice and optical illusions. Liam also got an honorable mention for the Aerospace Corporation’s Robert H. Herndon Regional Science Competition Award and first place for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), DC Chapter special award. The sixth graders were advised on their research by science teacher Ms. Dobler. All of these winners had earned honors at our school’s fair in February.
