The ultimate senior bucket list

By: Janese Watson

     Do you ever feel like you haven't done everything you wanted to do as a senior? Like there are more things to being a senior than graduating and getting into a good college? Have you ever thought about creating a “senior bucket list”? Most seniors plan to finish high school and then get through college, but why stop there? Why not enjoy this year not only for the education reason, but for yourself? Having a senior bucket list can fix the empty spaces you want filled. You only get to be a senior one time, so why not do it right?

● Go to your senior prom. Prom is something that everyone should experience at least once. If you choose not to go, what are you going to tell your kids when they ask how your prom went when you were a senior? 

● Go on a road trip with your best friends. There is nothing better than vacationing with the people who mean the most to you.

● Learn how to beatbox. Yeah, it’s different, but hey, why not?

● Go on a date. Not a date where you hangout and watch TV. Go to a nice restaurant and somewhere fun, something you've never done before. 

● Make new friends. No one wants to have the same friends all their life. Meet new people and do new things. 

● Run a race for a cause. You don’t like to run? Deal with it, try it out, and have fun. When are you going to get the chance to do something like this again? 

● Help a stranger. Helping an old lady walk across a street isn’t just in the movies. Take a chance and offer the help, it will be appreciated.  

● Loosen up. Take all the stress that you might be having and loosen up. Life gets easier when you want it to. 

● Tell your favorite teacher about their impact on you. Not every teacher hears how grateful their students are. Let them know that they are awesome. 

● Go to a concert. Never been to one? GO. Always go to them? GO AGAIN. 

● Have a water balloon fight. If you think they are too childish, think again.

● Go to a game for a sport you haven’t seen at school. Why? Well, why not?

● Kiss in the rain. It’s not just in movies, make it happen.

● Tell your crush your feelings. How much better would you feel if you told the one person you liked that you liked them right before you graduate. Do it. 

● Write a story. What’s a better story to read than a story you wrote?  

● Dye your hair. Change is good, right?

● Walk through the drive through. Yes, it says no walking, but when’s a better time to try?

● Have a conversation with a stranger. You could end up marrying that person!

● Plan a senior trip! Invite all your close friends and just have the time of your life, because well, it is your senior year. 

Have fun creating the best memories before going off to college! It’s all worth it. 

Music and math

By: Josh Leach

Why should students receive music education?  This question is quite valid; after all, on the surface understanding of music theory does not present any practical applications for students not pursuing a career in the musical arts.  However, numerous studies have supported a correlation between music education and heightened intelligence and improved academic performance.
Glenn Schellenberg, PhD, led a research team to find if music improves a child’s IQ scores.   The team’s results were published in the Journal of Educational Psychology .   A summary of this study was reported by PsychNet, a website which gives the public access to recent research findings.  The summary stated, “In Study 1 (N = 147), duration of music lessons was correlated positively with IQ and with academic ability among 6- to 11-year-olds, even when potential confounding variables (i.e., family income, parents' education, involvement in nonmusical activities) were held constant. In Study 2 (N = 150), similar but weaker associations between playing music in childhood and intellectual functioning were evident among undergraduates. In both studies, there was no evidence that musical involvement had stronger associations with some aspects of cognitive ability (e.g., mathematical, spatial-temporal, verbal) than with others. These results indicate that formal exposure to music in childhood is associated positively with IQ and with academic performance and that such associations are small but general and long lasting.”
The American Psychological Association commented on Schellenberg’s summary, saying, “The recent study builds on work he published in 2004, in which 6-year-olds given a year of voice or piano lessons saw a significantly larger increase in IQ than a control group that waited a year for musical instruction.  In the recent work, Schellenberg and his fellow researchers studied two groups of students: children 6 to 11 years old and college freshmen.  The younger group received an IQ test, an evaluation of their school grades and a measure of academic achievement. More than half of the group had taken music lessons, either in private or group instruction.”
The findings of the study are supported by several surveys and statistical analysis.  Wetter Koerner, a writer for Instructional Science: An International Journal of the Learning Science, said, “Statistical analysis comparing grades showed that children involved in music had significantly higher average grades than children in the control group. Moreover, the music group had significantly higher average grades in all individual subjects except sports.”  Abby Aldridge, a senior in the Seckman band program, said, “Absolutely, music makes you smarter.”  Her brother, Mike Aldridge, a junior at Seckman, said, “I think music helps coordinate the brain’s activities and make it work better.  That’s probably why music improves performance in school.”
Recently, many schools have cut their music departments due to substantial budget cuts.  If this correlation between music and intellectual success is true, then these students are losing out on these benefits.

DIY: Clothesline picture hanger

By: Sadie Raddatz

Have a big empty wall space and need to decorate it? Have a lot of pictures, but no way or space to show them off? Some hemp string, clothes pins and tape or staples can help you create something wonderful.

Materials:
- Hemp string
- Clothes pins
- Photographs
- Tape or a stapler

Instructions:
1. Cut the hemp string, long enough to fill the space you are covering.
2. Apply the string against your chosen surface and tape or staple it as needed.
3. Add clothespins where you want. They can be close or spaced apart.
4. Clip your pictures to the clothespins.
5. Repeat, if you want more than one line of string.

To add extra personality to your picture holder, add some colorful flowers, paint your clothes pins, or you can even buy some floral or designed ones. You can easily express your style and show off your cool pictures.

First it was The Dress. Now it’s a math problem.

By: Bella Dalba

The world has become divided once more. This time over a test question, now affectionately referred to as “Cheryl’s Birthday,” that was first posted on Facebook by Singaporean TV presenter Kenneth Kong. The wordy problem asks readers to logically deduce the birth date of a girl named Cheryl, using only the minimal clues she gives to her friends, Albert and Bernard. Not surprisingly, it has stumped thousands.
Cheryl's Birthday was initially reported to be an examination question for 11-year-olds, but has since been attributed to a test for high school students competing in the Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad on April 8. Kenneth Kong, who first posted the problem, told the BBC: "It's a really difficult question for younger kids, so that's why people were so shocked at first... but now that people know it's for older students, they just think it's quirky."
The test was aimed at the top 40% of eligible students, and was used to "sift out the better students.” Children stressed by tough examinations is a perennial issue in Singapore, but Cheryl's Birthday reignited concerns that education systems worldwide were excessively stressful. The school that administered the exam, Sasmo, defended the question, saying there was "a place for some kind of logical and analytical thinking in the workplace and in our daily lives. We are not saying this problem is for every student... But if these kind of problems can be used to stretch the better students to sharpen their analytical power, why not?"
     Others took umbrage at the wording: "I hope people picked up that the person who set the question needs to go for English grammar classes - there are at least two grammar errors," said Twitter user Clarence Singam-Zhou.
     Regardless, the question, which has been shared internationally, sparked a Twitter hashtag (#cherylsbirthday) and even a music track. Various answers and their accompanying explanations have been posted across the Internet, through a multitude of sources: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, news outlets like The New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as YouTube (particularly Georgia Tech Mathematician Matt Baker’s video), all pushing different theories as to the correct answer.
     “I’m convinced that there is no answer, and that this is all one big hoax to prove how gullible the public is,” said Sabrina Gretzmacher, a senior at Seckman High School.
So when is Cheryl's birthday really? According to Sasmo (which quickly dismissed an "alternative solution" that resulted in August 17), the correct solution is July 16. Of course, the Internet has offered other solutions: "After spending so much time together, thinking of Cheryl's birthdate, Albert and Bernard soon fell in love with each other and forgot all about Cheryl," said Elfy Bianca Hassan in a comment on Kong's Facebook page.
     Mackenzie Hunt, another senior at Seckman High School, believes that there is a simpler solution at hand: “Just add Cheryl on Facebook and you'll be notified when her birthday comes along.”

Robots taking over traffic

By: Dori Jenkins

Huge robots have invaded the whole city of Kinshasa, but they’re not there to cause trouble. The robots are there to lend a helping hand by directing traffic.  Kinshasa is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country in Africa. Last month, the city’s government installed three eight foot tall robots, named Tamuke, Mwaluke, and Kisanga, at busy street intersections. Along with them are two other robots from 2013.        
Each robot is equipped with surveillance cameras and traffic lights. These machines are being used in the place of police officers to watch for drivers who don’t follow the rules of the road. This should help make the streets safer for pedestrians and people who break the law. Kinshasa is a huge city with a serious traffic safety problem. About nine million people live there and its bustling streets are crammed with cars whose drivers often fail to obey traffic laws. In the past eight years, more than 2,000 people have died in road accidents in the city. Officials hope drivers will pay more attention to the hard-to-miss robots, resulting in less dangerous streets. A sophomore at Seckman High School, Caitlin Renwick, says, “As a new driver, I personally would feel safer knowing that there was an extra set of eyes watching as people drive and it will hopefully lower the amount of accidents that occur.”                                                                  
To monitor traffic, each solar-powered bot has video cameras in its eyes. The cameras record footage and transmit it to a police station, where officers review the information. If the police catch a driver breaking the law, they then issue him/her a ticket. The robots also have traffic lights in their hands, and their bodies rotate to signal when it’s safe for cars and people on foot to cross intersections.
What do Kinshasa’s human police officers think of their state-of-the-art counterparts? “These robots will be an important asset [something of value] for the police,” Celestin Kanyama, one of the leaders of Kinshasa’s police force, told the news agency.
The team that designed the robots is an association of Congolese female engineers. They have created another five of the machines for use in other parts of the country. The group would like to build 30 additional robots, with each one costing around $27,500 to make. A junior at Seckman High School, Kaci Reed, says, “I think that it would be much cheaper to just put cameras on the light posts instead of making that expensive of a robot to just do the same thing that a camera would.”                                                                                                                    
So far, people seem pleased with the robocops. “As a motorcyclist, I’m very happy with the robot’s work,” a Kinshasa man named Demouto Mutombo told a local news team.

Seckman's Wake Up Day opens eyes

By: Sadie Raddatz

As a member of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), I can proudly say that on Friday, April 24, SADD held our annual Wake Up Day. Wake Up Day is a day to have students “wake up” and realize what driving distracted or under the influence can do.

The members of SADD put together a fake car crash to allow seniors to see what could happen by being distracted or under the influence while driving. We bring in the big guys: police, firefighters, and the ambulance. They will explain and demonstrate the consequences of making poor choices while behind the wheel. When you are behind the wheel, not only is your own life at risk every time you start your car, but everyone else's life is on the line too.

Seckman High School also had many guest speakers come to talk about their organization, an experience they've had and even accidents caused by distracted or intoxicated individuals. These guest speakers were in classrooms throughout the school, sharing personal stories and useful information. Teenagers, and adults, often believe that nothing will happen to them, but the reality of that is harshly untrue. You can be hurt, you can go to jail, and you can be killed with one poor choice.

One text, one phone call, one beer and, in a flash, your life can change. You could lose scholarships, friends, a loved one, or even your own life. SADD’s goal is not to lecture or bore you to death, but to help students understand the dangers.