Sullivan South teacher Tom Rutherford and two South students, Matthew Boyd and Luke Hiester, recently traveled to the 2013 winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Washington, DC.  The group from South was part of a research team involving teachers and students from three other states (WI, CT, NH).  While at the AAS meeting, the team presented their scientific poster, "Color-Magnitude Relationship of Type I Seyfert Galaxies Using Data from SDSS and GALEX." (A Seyfert galaxy is a galaxy which contains a super massive black hole that is active, making them visible across enormous distances).  The poster represented the culmination of over one year of work on the project, spread among the four teachers and 16 students involved.  Several of the astronomers at the meeting indicated that they were impressed that high school groups were doing authentic research.  The lead astronomer for this particular research team was Dr. Varoujan Gorjian from Caltech.

In addition to the science poster, the four teachers involved presented an education poster, "NITARP Alignment with Common Core Literacy and Mathematics Standards," showing how the work done by the group fit with the Common Core.  

Pictured below:  Matthew Boyd

Pictured below:  Luke Hiester

Pictured below:  Tom Rutherford

Kylie Burkey, a Senior at Central High School, passed the Theory portion of the Cosmetology State Board exam on January 16, 2014. Kylie performed exceptionally well, scoring a 92 on the test. The failure rate for first-time test takers is 50%--this was Kylie's first attempt.

Kylie will travel to Knoxville to take the next level of State Boards, the Practical portion, within the next few weeks. After passing both portions of the State Boards, Kylie will be authorized to apply for her Cosmetology license and can go to work as a cosmetologist immediately. She has been allowed to take these tests only because she met the required number of hours during her cosmetology classes at Central.

While at Central, Kylie has competed and won several awards for her work at the regional, state and national levels. She is currently the National 1st place winner in cosmetology, an award that she won last summer in Kansas City. She will continue to compete this year as she works under the direction of Avery Putney, Central's cosmetology instructor.

Kelly Miller, Bobbie Nave, and several gracious volunteers took a group of Bluff City Elementary children to a local nursing home to do some Christmas caroling!  This was a followup to our Character Counts service project.  Lots of home-made Christmas cards and ornaments were given to the residents.  Afterwards, at school, hot chocolate and cookies were provided for the children.  This experience was a blessing for all!

Sullivan South won the Stock market Game for the Fall 2013 School Year!!  "The Brick Squad", pictured below, earned $18,000 in 15 weeks on an initial investment of $100,000!!  That results in a 62% return on an annual basis, which is SPECTACULAR!

The students that make up the "Brick Squad" are (left to right), Randy Durham, Chris Johnson, Matt Guinn, and Faith Duncan.

Their poster was very creative in that they showed a stack of bricks labeled with the symbol for GOLD, and their slogan was "Brick by Brick"!

 

2nd Grade students in Mr. David Meade's art room at Ketron Elementary have been exploring the world of blown glass by watching videos of Dale Chihuly in his glass blowing studio.  During this project the 2nd grade learned about States of Matter and the transition from solids (glass) to liquid (molten glass) to solids (glass).  Mr. Meade was inspired by this to create a recycling project for students during their Recycling Cycle in the STEM class.  Students, parents and even teachers help collect and donated the plastic water bottles for the project. Students colored their bottle with a glue/paint mixture and once dried they would cut them apart.  Then the fun part students used hairdryers to set the shape of their bottle into spires (which resembled Chihuly's designs).  Student then with the help of Mr. Meade would wire their spires to lamp based that Mr. Meade made.  Each 2nd Grade class created one lamp for their classroom teacher.