When you take a look down the commons of Como Park Senior High School, what do you see? Do you see the senior wall at the end of it, the cafeteria to the side, or maybe the black and gold panels on the floor? One thing you’ve seen but may have not really taken a true look at, is how are school is integrated socially. Do you see the jocks with the jocks and nerds with the nerds, or is the social make-up dispersed where you can’t tell as clearly.

Groups are a huge part of our social lives. They are what make us feel connected to society; from political parties to your poker buddies on a Saturday night. We are part of some type of group whether we realize it or not. It’s just the way life is, and high school is a prime example of how social groups play out.

Here at Como Park Senior High we have social groups just as other schools do, but is it exactly the same as other schools? Like other High Schools, Como Park has many clubs and activities that keep our social lives going like Anime Club, Robotics, Young Democrats and Republicans, and an array of sports and athletics.

With that in mind, you would think that a school with as many groups and activities would be very socially segregated. However, that is not always the case.

When you look down Como Park’s commons in the morning, between classes, or after school, you see people grouped together talking to each other. Sometimes race plays a card in these groups but as far as the kind of people they are and who they hangout with outside of school, you can’t always tell if it affects the grouping if kids.

In the commons you can pick out a few groups of people and maybe put them into a certain social group, but for the most part people are integrated and talking to whomever around them. Letterman jacket jocks are with top of the class students and with music cats, all together talking and enjoying themselves. You probably won’t see them all out of school hanging out, but inside the school the social groups don’t stand out as bluntly as other suburban and private schools.

Being an inner city school, Como Park has a very diverse student population with all sorts of different people. No one group really dominates the vast majority of the students here. The diversity of our school is something that people tend to take for granted. Diversity tat our school in race and social characteristics help us students at Como Park learn to appreciate different types of people. It’s really an advantage for life and our futures, being able to understand there doesn’t have to be borderlines that limit us from the experiences in life.

The Senior All Night Party will be June, 10 2010 at Como Park Senior High starting at 10:30 p.m. going till the morning at 5 a.m. This year’s party will not seize to be a blast for the class of 2010. Doors will close by 11:15p.m. to enter the all-night graduation party.

At check-in, bring a picture ID which can be a school ID or Driver’s License to prove who you are and to be admitted to the party. Students will receive a wristband with a number, activities schedule, and Cougar Cash and needs to be kept on at all times. No latecomers will be allowed to come in after 11:15p.m., so make sure you are here on time.

It may be the Senior All-Night Graduation Party, but there will be no smoking, alcohol and any other drug related substances. Any sign of these or other dangerous behavior will result in your dismissal from the party and your parent/guardian will be notified. Plus you’ll throw your money for the ticket at the window and missed chance at having a blast.

For those worried about getting anything stolen or wanting to place your items in some sort of storage, in the cafeterian you will have a special bag with a number. This is will be a secure place to store your personal items and gifts and don’t worry because volunteering parents will be guarding this area all-night. If you want you can even bring your yearbook to get some signatures to remember for the rest of your life.

Activities going on during the all-night party are endless. From 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. there will be open swim so if you want, bring a suit, towel, and a plastic bag. From 3 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. in the auditorium there will be a hypnotist. Seating begins at 2:10 a.m. for the show in the auditorium. Doors will close at 2:25 a.m. No food beverages will be allowed in the auditorium and cell phones must be turned off.

Food and Beverages will be available all night and breakfast will served at 4:15 a.m. Look at the time of your ticket you bought for the party because that is when your raffle time will be to earn prizes in the cafeteria. Any other information will be available near the entrance. Anyone in need of help should visit the information table.

Remember the party June, 10 2010 at Como Park Senior High starting at 10:30 p.m. and doors close at 11:15 p.m. Make sure you’re ready with a picture ID and whatever you need to have fun all night. It should be a great time. Lets have a blast Class of 2010!

Zoo keepers and fellow staff members were shocked when they noticed him laying on the ground. Staff ran in to an unresponsive Gordy. With their best efforts they tried to revive him but they were unsuccessful.

“This loss has truly been devastating,” said Michelle Furrer, director of the Como Park Zoo & Conservatory. “No one is more heartbroken by this than zoo staff, who worked so valiantly to save Gordy’s life.”

An autopsy was performed on him but results won’t be known for two weeks. Doctors say it could be heart related because it is common in adult gorillas to die from heart issues.

Gordy was a 23 year old, 400 pound gorilla. He was among three lowland gorillas displayed at the zoo. Gordy showed no signs of behavioral changes, or illness.

This loss will be felt around the community for sometime. Donations to the Como Park Zoo can be directed towards “Como Friends” who raises funds to help promote and expand the Como Park Zoo.

Monday, May 17^th, Physics students from around the area took a visit to Valleyfair to explore the laws of Physics and engineering concepts in the amusement park.

Valleyfair and Minnesota Science Teachers Association  offered three Physics days this year to turn the amusement park into Minnesota’s largest classroom. This year was the 23^rd time physics day that took place. Valleyfair was  only open exclusively to physics students from May 17^th to 19^th.

Some students thought it was  going to be just all fun and games at Valleyfair, but Como’s physics department made sure the students got involved in some hard work and thinking.  Students’ physics skills were put to the test as they explored and calculated different forces and velocities in the park.

Before arriving to the park, the students had to work on a pre-lab worksheet where they calculated speeds and forces of the bus they were riding in to relate towards the rides at Valleyfair. Each student was assigned a ride to work on such as the Power Tower and Wild Thing. After a couple rides, the students will complete their lab and then have the rest of the day to have fun.

Overall, the students had a great time at Valleyfair. They got to hangout and have fun with friends and learn a lot about the Physics of Valleyfair.  The trip showed why it exists for schools and students to take part in every year.

Mr. Erickson and Ms. Griffin applied for a grant called the Fund for Teachers earlier this year. The Fund for Teachers grant is provided by Saint Paul Public Schools to bring the world to the classroom by giving teachers the opportunity to travel overseas. Last year 14 teachers in SPPS were chosen to receive this grant and now two of our own have received this unique grant.

Advanced Placement European History teacher Ms. Griffin is choosing to use her grant to travel to Florence and Rome, Italy. From June 12^th to 24^th she will by viewing and learning about Ancient Rome’s architecture and art, as well as the history from the Renaissance and Baroque period.

“I’ve been running into it so much in my teaching that I wanted to see it for myself.”

Mr. Erickson, AP Government, AP Macroeconomics, and U.S. History teacher will be visiting China and its growing economy. Starting August 10^th, Mr. Erickson will fly out to China where he will spend two weeks in places such as, Xian, Beijing, and Shanghai.

Spending three days and nights in the center of economic activity Shanghai, Mr. Erickson will travel to Xian via train where he will be teaching conversational English as part of a volunteer program called Cross Cultural Solutions. Afterwards, he will visit Beijing to see the sights and sounds.

With his experience in China, Mr. Erickson said he will have a better of understanding of the culture and economy, political history with the Cold War, and gain an insight to teaching comparative politics and international trade. While teaching English he will learn the daily challenges students at Como face everyday with the language barrier.

“Being a minority, I’ll be the one struggling with the language; I’ll be the one struggling with the customs.”

Both teachers, Mr. Erickson and Ms. Griffin, will be learning and gaining experience as they spend their time overseas this summer. The classrooms here at Como can be defined by the walls from side to side but the experience across nations can’t be. Next year’s students of the two teachers, will have a great time being able to hear what it’s like in different parts of the world, and maybe gain an interest in study abroad and traveling in their futures.

There are about 6.8 billion people who live on this planet. That’s 6.8 billion people with their own lives, their own ambitions, and their own dreams. With the world about to end, with the knowledge that they have only a short amount of time to fulfill what they had hoped to accomplish in their lives, how would these people react? There are many things that you often think of the masses doing in such a situation: praying to their respective gods, collecting their family together, looting. But how would real people want to spend their last moments? If the world was going to come to an end in twenty-four hours, with no chance of coming out alive, what would people want to accomplish? What would you do? A survey was taken of Como Park students to see what they would want to do, here’s what they said:

Out of the fifty people that filled out a list of the ten things they would want to do if the world had twenty-four hours left, there were many people who seemed to think along the same lines. The most popular choice was to “Spend Time with Someone of the Opposite Sex”. Almost 95% of the students surveyed included this (sometimes several times) in the ten things they would do. The most popular person to “spend time” with was Sam Hickel, who was mentioned by five people, the next most popular was Taylor Lautner, the crappy actor from the bad movie Twilight, who was mentioned by two people. Spending time with Friends/Family/Loved ones came in second, being mentioned by about 83% of those surveyed. Checking their Facebook came in 6^th place, with almost 60% of those surveyed mentioning it. This reporter was genuinely shocked that anyone, with a day left to live, would spend any time at all in front of a computer, but to each their own.

]]> http://www.comocrier.org/life-at-como/2010/04/20/what-would-cougars-do/feed/ 0 http://www.comocrier.org/life-at-como/2010/04/20/first-robotics-competition-ten-thousand-lakes-2010-regional/ http://www.comocrier.org/life-at-como/2010/04/20/first-robotics-competition-ten-thousand-lakes-2010-regional/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:31:55 +0000 adviser http://www.comocrier.org/?p=1631 Over Spring Break the Como Park Robotics Team attended the event that they had been getting ready for the past four months. On January 9^th the team received parts for their robot, along with information on what task the robot would be expected to perform at the Regional Competition. The Team, along with expert supervision and a grant from General Motors, have been working hard to repair their robot and hoped to live up to their performance at last years Regional Competition where they placed 9^th.

Since receiving the parts and directions for their robot in early January the Robotics Team, under the supervision of Mr. Olsen and Mr. Wahi from Como along with Mr. Young and Mr. Nelson who represented General Dynamics, have been spending the past months hard at work. They have been building their robot, programming it, testing it, and rebuilding it. With a grant of $9000 dollars from General Motors the team was able to afford the necessary supplies, and under the direction of Mr. Wahi and Mr. Olsen the team has been preparing their robot for the competition.

The team was formed last year, so they do not have quite as much experience as many of the other teams that would be competing at the Regional Competition. Despite their apparent inexperience, the Como Park Robotics Team had an impressive record for its short existence. At last years Regional Competition, the team’s first competition, they placed 9^th.

The competition that the Team had prepared for was held over Spring Break. FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition Ten-thousand Lakes 2010 Regional competition was held from Thursday April 1^st-Saturday April 2^nd in the Williams Arena of the University of Minnesota. The competition was a three day event. The first day consisted of practice rounds, it was a chance for the teams to work out any problems with their robots and try them out in the “field”. The second day and with the start of the third were the Qualifying Rounds. This is where three teams were randomly grouped together, and competed against other teams of three robots. The point of the game was for the robots to get a soccer ball into the opposing team’s goal.

The Como Park Robotics Team had built a defensive robot to play a kind of “goalie”. The competition was filled with problems that the team faced. “The other team’s offensive robots” that the Como Team was paired up with “were not very good” said Student Captain C. Dale, “and we faced some technical difficulties”. The “technical difficulties” were some serious malfunctions that occurred. During the last two games of the Qualifying Rounds the Como Robot’s chain detached itself from the wheels. In the end the Como team was unable to make it past the Qualifying Rounds, and we finished placing 62^nd out of 63 teams.

This loss did not dishearten the Robotics team, since they still had a very good past few months. In the time it took to build the robot the members of the team bonded and were able to make friends with one another. They still look forward to, and remain hopeful, for next year. “They’ll need more people next year,” says Student Captain C. Dale, who will be graduating this year, “that was the biggest difference between our team and all the others”

On a beautiful sunny day in March, Mr. Lucas’s Environmental and Biology classes took a field trip to the Belwin Conservancy. The students at the conservancy were able to walk around the property while being taught about natural sciences focusing on water quality. Belwin is located just north of Afton near the west bank of the Saint Croix.

This program is part of Valley branch environmental learning center, which was started in 1971 as part of a collaborative effort between Belwin and Saint Paul Public Schools. Their mission statement is to provide a meaningful outdoor learning experience which promotes life-long awareness toward the care and respect of our world. This program is usually for elementary school students but the experience is invaluable at any age.

When the students arrived at Belwin they were lead into the learning center where they were given a brief history of the conservancy and taught about some of the studies being conducted in the rivers and ponds. The students were able to learn about some of the purposes and applications for studying water quality. The group was then taken outside to walk around Belwin’s beautiful property. During the course of the walk the guide helped students identify different plants as well as showing certain interesting features of the land.

The students were then brought to a stream and a pond, where they measured different things about the water quality such as pH level, dissolved oxygen, and biodiversity. All the samples from the river and pond were then brought back to the learning center and examined. The students were able to learn a lot about what plants and animals need to survive in water while looking at the information they collected. The experience was fun and informative giving students an opportunity to conduct hands on learning.

A past teacher from Como was also present at Belwin. Some students who had Environmental or Biology in the past years may remember Mr. Leonard. He is now working at Belwin in fact as one of the instructors and is still providing the quality teaching that we enjoyed at Como. He wishes other teachers at Como to know that Belwin is open to any classes that want to come and experience the conservancy.

If any of you have a way of scanning your art so it can be put on our website please email it to ReverendHoffman@gmail.com with “School Art” as the subject.

Soon we will have something set up with the school so we will be able to scan the pictures in for you but until then you will all have have to find your own means of making digital copies.

Also anything sent in must unfortunately be school appropriate, so nothing to racy kids.

As you  already know, one month ago today an earthquake devastated the small, impoverished country of Haiti located around 700 miles from the Florida coast. The earthquake destroyed Haiti’s infrastructure and left its cities in ruins. 230,000 people have been identified as dead, while over 300,000 people were left injured from the quake. To date, the American Red Cross has raised approximately $255 million for the relief effort in Haiti, but there is still work to be done.

Of the $255 million raised so far, around $80 million has already been spent or committed into relief and recovery efforts, of which 69% has gone to food and water, 20% has gone to shelter, and 11% has gone towards health and family services. The Red Cross has distributed over 1 million water-purification sachets, spent over $30 million to feed the victims of the earthquake, and is providing temporary shelter as well as solutions to help rebuild homes.

Here at Como, the students are doing their part to help with assistance towards Haiti. The National Honor Society is organizing donations for the American Red Cross to go to Haiti, and they are accepting donations in all three lunches. Some of the revenue from the Winterfest buttons and Dance is also going to the Red Cross, so the school is filled with opportunities to support those in need. Due to the incredible response to which the American Public met the incident, the Red Cross has been able to make a monumental difference. If you care to contribute, buy a Winterfest ticket, Button, or simply donate in lunch.