Ms. Dikes and Mr. Lakhaney hosted BSGE’s fourth annual Team Geography Bee on Thursday, May 28th. Students from grades 7-12 participated with 27 teams and almost 100 students in attendance. “The Betty White Power Rangers,” a team composed of 10th grade students, Malcolm Sherman-Godfrey, Adrian Kulesza, and John Bost, finished in first and each took home $20 gift amazon gift certificates along with copies of Chimera by David Wellington. “The Bomb.Com,” composed of 7th graders Owen Smith, Rashmika Batra,
Tag: Articles from 2014-15
For BSGE’s class of 2015, IB exam season began April of 2014 with test prep running heavy for their Standard Level Chemistry and Biology exams in May. This stressful period has once again returned for seniors, with their first exam being English Literature Higher Level (HL) from May 4th to the 5th. These exams will then be followed by Mathematics Standard Level (SL) and Spanish SL exams from May 12th to 13th, History of the Americas HL on May 14, 15 and 18 and finally French SL exams on May 18th and 19th. For those unfamiliar with the International Baccalaureate curriculum – which is much harder than AP, just so you know – receiving an IB Diploma, the much coveted and respected diploma that helps students be internationally recognized by their education, is only attainable by completing 150 CAS hours, earning between a Grade A and Grade E on the Extended Essay and performing well enough on the IB exams to get a minimum of 24 points total, among other rules and requirements. These exams consist of three Higher Level subjects and three Standard Level subjects. For BSGE seniors’, their HLs include Visual Art, English Literature and History of the Americas. Their SLs are Mathematics, Science (Bio or Chem) and Language B (Spanish or French).
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The Delicacies of Mamu Thai
The day was gray and windy, not an ideal Friday to go out and eat lunch with my friends during school. However, I still wanted to take a break from that unappetizing school lunch served every day. It seemed like a perfectly good opportunity to try out this Thai restaurant that has been so popular among my classmates and friends: Mamu Thai.
The walk to Mamu Thai took about 2 minutes because the restaurant is located just around the corner from our school. As I stepped in the restaurant, I was overwhelmed by the sweet aromatic smell of a mixture of spices: garlic, onion, shrimp paste, chilies, and something I couldn’t identify. It smelled like barbecue, but had a hint of lemony sourness to it. The small restaurant’s brightly-decorated walls caught my eye: on one side, there was a huge collage covered with signs that displayed pictures and words that were in both Thai and English. From the ceilings hung incandescent pendant lights, their warm yellow glow illuminating the entire restaurant, casting a cozy and serene atmosphere. Lined along the collage wall was a long wooden counter with five red bar stools beautifully embroidered with swirling golden thread. From the walls, which were painted with red and yellow, hung small paintings of Buddha. There was a panoramic glass window built into a wall, which allowed customers to see the kitchen from the dining area. Soft country music playing from the speakers filled the entire room.
Everyone expected the press event to be about Windows 10 and how it would change all of Microsoft’s other major products. Nobody thought that Microsoft would reveal a new device; a device with the potential to revolutionize technology as we know it. This device is called the Hololens and it has been in secret development for 7 years.
The Microsoft Hololens is an augmented reality-computing device. The device resembles ski goggles, with a big dark visor, and a dark band. The screen creates images that convince the wearer that all kinds of things are appearing in front of him. Like a computer, the Hololens can run several different applications. In fact it is a computer, and completely self-contained as well; it is not a kind of Bluetooth device. However, it has the potential to do so much more.
8th Grader, Anokha Venugopal, published an article in India Abroad magazine about her new-found passion for photography. Click on the image below to read the article.
Dr. Helfenbein is an avid film watcher (or, as some would say, cinephile) and will be writing a semi-regular column for the BACC Rag in which he recommends older movies students might be interested in watching.
The first two decades of the sound era (the 30s and 40s) saw few science fiction movies (notable exceptions being the serials Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers). Whether it was due to the atomic era and Cold War or just to the fact the time was right, the 1950s saw an explosion of science fiction on the big screen: space monsters, alien invaders, colliding planets, giant invertebrates, and mad scientists all made it to the big time in the decade that gave us Fortran and rock ‘n’ roll. In this column I’ll deal with selections from the unfriendly-visitors-from-outer-space subgenre.
The Thing From Another World (1951), directed by Christian Nyby, tells the tale of a group of scientists, military personnel and news reporters at a station in Antarctica. They find, buried beneath snow and ice, a space ship . . . and its lone occupant. The Thing is a classic of claustrophobic horror with most of the action between humans and bloodthirsty alien taking place in the confined quarters of the station, the exterior an inhospitable frozen zone. This movie served up the UFO-mania r
BSGE’s class of 2014 received a school record 40 IB diplomas. Of the 63 students who graduated in 2014, 56 completed all of the IB requirements and 40 received enough points to earn the IB diploma. 2014’s class also had the highest percentage of graduating seniors receive the diploma in BSGE’s history (see table below).
Ms. Jennifer Dikes, IB coordinator and 12th grade history teacher, commented that it was “sheer awesome that they did so well. I’m really proud of them.”
Ms. Dikes added that what differentiated this group of students from past groups was their attitudes toward attaining the IB Diploma. “Almost all of the students understood that
BSGE 7th grade Annelie Hyatt performed her spoken word poem titled, The Immaturity Dissection (full poem included below), at a recent event at Writopia’s Spoken Word at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Annelie wrote this poem as part of a program she attends at Writopia Labs where she has been developing her writing for the past couple of years.
Annelie says that she was always into writing and then two or three years ago her mom helped her find this program. At Writopia “there are instructors who are published authors in literary magazines and newspapers who come to teach kids who like writing once a week” Annelie explains. Each week the kids get to
Wednesday, October 8th was the day of the 9th grade open house at BSGE. Of course you already knew this, because it was undoubtedly marked in the planners of every BSGE student as the most important day of this month. There was a meeting after school in the library about the new organization of BSGE’s most talked about night of the year. Blank name tag stickers were handed out, and students screamed, “PASS THE SHARPIE” in the conference room as they eagerly scrawled things like “Ask me about softball!” on their name tags.
This year, college counselor Peter Wilson and parent coordinator Margaret Pasach were the ones who rallied up the volunteers, and gave them instructions for the event. The tags displayed the names of students, a feature of BSGE they were knowledgable about, and a second language which they kept hidden for moments like these when the world most needed their bilingual skills. Armed with brochures, name tags, and after-school snacks from the deli, the volunteers made their way to the cafeteria to get their room assignments. All the students excitedly rushed to sign their names in the same rooms as their friends, and soon they were walking up the stairs in groups. However, the Seniors, as BSGE royalty, had the prestigious job of welcoming hopeful BSGE applicants and their parents in the lobby. As Anthony Mendieta ’16 elegantly said “Quote this. I like how it sounds, ‘those walking out welcomed those walking in.’” LMS if you cried.
BSGE’s 2014-15 school year began at a surprising note when news went around that there was no more 8th period. For the first time in the school’s history, students must leave the building by 2:20 p.m. on Mondays AND Tuesdays. However, students are still free to engage in after school activities on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, in which the school closes at 4 p.m. The reason behind this schedule change is the UFT contractual agreement, otherwise known as the Teacher’s Contract. The Contract is based on the agreement that from now on, Monday and Tuesday’s 8th period will be swapped for teacher training and parent engagement, rather than last year’s student homework help that was offered.
Starting this year, on Mondays professional development and group meetings will be held in which only teachers are allowed to remain in the building. Then on Tuesdays, the school will be open until 4:00 pm for teachers either to work independently or with select students that need one-on-one training. Following this from Wednesdays to Fridays, the school will be open for after school activities such as Zumba, Yoga, Mouse Squad, the Bacc Rag and other clubs. (With the exception of Helping Hands which will continue to hold meetings on Mondays)
The BACC Rag 