Flag Football Comes to GWCS

This is the first year for GWCS to offer a flag football club. The desire for this club came from the student body who wanted another fall activity to demonstrate their camaraderie to one another while having fun at an athletic endeavor.  This is the first time most of the participants have ever played flag football. Mr. Connelly and Mr. Fedinatz strive to create a fun atmosphere to engage the students outside the classroom providing students with an opportunity to take on new challenges and grow from these experiences. During flag football students not only learn the nuances of football but how to work with others, overcome adversity and experience all the ups and downs of a team sport.  Mostly, they are just having fun!

 

 

FLAG FOOTBALL PRACTICE...

FLAG FOOTBALL GAMES...

Pumpkins & Costumes & Doughnuts, Oh My!

Halloween at GWCS is one of those celebrations that can only be described through photos.   Lots and lots of photos!  

First, SGA sponsors a pumpkin carving contest the afternoon before the Halloween party.  This year the winner of the pumpkin contest was Trevor for depicting respected Halloween virtues such as gooey, barfy, pukey and blaaaaah.  This is Trevor's second year in a row to win the pumpkin carving contest.  He has this art down to a science.

The next morning everyone arrives at school in full costume.  Participation is the key to a successful Halloween party and this year the students did us proud.  The costumes were creative, funny, ridiculous, bloody, and surprising.  The GWCS Halloween party tradition includes a costume fashion show contest.  This year's winners were:

Paul, Doughnut King

  • First prize: Xavier as Slenderman
  • Second prize: Delia as The Joke and
                          Jodie as Harley Quinn
  • Third Prize: Trevor as Wario

Next up was the ever popular dangling doughnut competition.  This year's winner was the same as last year's winner.  Paul was made to eat dangling doughnuts while blindfolded!  

Special thanks to our SGA, Josh, Loea, Lucas, Megan, Paul and Wade, for organizing, decorating and executing a frighteningly fabulous Halloween celebration!

“Today Halloween is primarily marked by putting on a disguise and asking for candy, but Halloween has its roots in at least two Medieval celebrations: the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saint’s Day. The spooky festival’s name, however, comes from only one.Samhain is Gaelic for “summer’s end,” and marks what has loosely been labeled the “Celtic New Year,” the end of the “lighter half” of the year and the beginning of the “darker half.” One of the four fire festivals of the year, it was celebrated on November 1 when, it was believed, the dead arose for one night. Sound familiar?

The other celebration, All Saint’s Day, honors all of the Catholic saints. The Roman Catholic Church refers to it as the “Solemnity of All Saints.” Though this celebration does not bear a close resemblance to the festivities of Halloween, it did give the holiday its name. The word Halloween is a direct derivation of All Saints’ Day. All Hallows in Old English means “the feast of the saints.” Halloween, first attested in the 18th century, is a Scottish variant of All-Hallows-Even. The Even meant evening. The spelling of the word was once Hallowe’en, in which the “v” was elided. The current spelling wasn’t widely adopted until the 20th century.”

Lake Anna Writing Retreat

The Senior Essay Writing Retreat at Lake Anna always stirs up excitement around GWCS.

College admissions essays are many student's one opportunity to speak directly to the colleges they are applying and share the character behind their transcripts, GPA and test scores.

Lake Anna in late October is INSANELY BEAUTIFUL, with fall foliage punching bright yellows and reds into the landscape.

Three days of communal living, hard work and a singular goal, all unplugged from the grid, is an rare event. For many students it's a real breath of fresh air in their sometimes intense senior year. 

This year's crop of seniors took to the retreat with great gusto and aplomb. One wrote about the relationship between water and leadership, another about how losing a PE competition completely changed his life, another about how frying fish taught him the value of diligence. Students spotted Venus, Mars AND Jupiter in the night sky (thanks to a tip from Dr. Cox!), got up early to watch morning fog roll off the lake, and had a general blast soaking up their classmates' company. 

““It was great! It gave me a secluded environment to write my essay, and then a nice opportunity to relax because I got done early.””
— GWCS SENIOR - CHRIS C.

 

THE GWCS CLASS OF 2016


Brisk 5K at Burke Lake Park

Raising awareness at the decoding DYSLEXIA 5K 

Thank you to all of the GWCS teachers, students, parents, siblings, friends and dogs who participated in (and/or contributed to) the 5K Run/Walk for Dyslexia community service event with Mr. Connelly on Sunday, October 11th!  It was an invigorating morning at a beautiful location for a good cause!  GWCS had a great turnout with over 20 participants.   Congratulations to our very own Josh Bane for coming in first place for his age group and tenth overall!  Woot Woot!

For more information about the cause, read this Connection Article.  "...Decoding Dyslexia Virginia, the local branch of a national advocacy organization with the aim of raising awareness of the disorder and providing people with more information about the resources available... hosted its first Decoding Dyslexia 5K Run for Dyslexia at Burke Lake Park on Oct. 11."

MIT SPLASH!

A BUNCH OF SHORT CLASSES ON A HUGE VARIETY OF COOL TOPICS AT AN AMAZING UNIVERSITY IN BOSTON!

Our GWCS Coyotes love learning so much that six of them traveled to Boston from September 21-25, 2015 to participate in the MIT Splash weekend.  They took classes in a variety of subjects from science and math to philosophy and hip hop.  This year our students enjoyed learning about strategy and game design (not to mention the chance to play Super Smash Brothers with MIT students on the day of first release!) at the MIT Game Lab and they programmed robots and toured the MIT museum.  In addition to full days of MIT Splash classes, they extended their visit to explore and tour Boston's history and cuisine.

The six GWCS students (Joshua, Kelley, Holden, Danny, Emily and Bobby) and five parents (Mrs. Bellows, Mrs. Carlisle, Mr. Carlisle, Dr. Dana, and Mrs. Saile) who attended MIT Splash this year had lots of fun filling their heads with new ideas and experiences.  This is the second year in a row that Mrs. Saile (GWCS parent & PAC President) organized this parent-led trip to MIT Splash in Boston, MA.  The feedback about the trip and the students' experiences were so exciting that GWCS plans to make this an annual school sponsored trip in the future.

“For one awesome weekend each November, thousands of high schoolers flood MIT’s campus to take classes, taught by MIT students, on anything and everything. From music theory to Hungarian history to aircraft analysis, Splash offerings number over 400 every year and span a wide variety of areas. Want to take a class on origami? Lasers? Neuropharmacology? All are open to you.

Over the course of 19 hours during Splash, you can get your feet wet with a short introduction to any number of subjects—things you always wanted to learn and topics you never knew existed—or you can dive head first into an in-depth seminar or intensive workshop.

In addition to normal classes, Splash also offers walk-in activities: hands-on events where you can show up or leave whenever you want. Walk-ins are great for filling gaps in your schedule, and they don’t require you to sign up in advance (although you must be registered for Splash to attend). Planned activities include everything from modular origami to bubble tea-making to games of SET to chainmail crafting. There’s something for everyone!”
— MIT Splash Website

COMPUTERS FOR AFRICA

Dear GWCS,

On behalf of the Roger Muntu Education Foundation I would like to thank you for your generous gift of computers. Your commitment to helping education in African schools is sincerely appreciated.

Each year the Roger Muntu Education Foundation continues to advance its mission of assisting schools in Africa. Through our programs “Education First” we are seeing many lives changed for the better.

In particular the “Education First” has enjoyed great success in the past year when were given few laptops from the GWCS school. This jester of kindness triggered the need to assist and to focus on DRC, Togo, Mali, and Chad because their struggles and being the worst education systems in Africa. Our solution is to systematically develop community schools in rural regions of DRC for the purpose of expanding classroom access, improving the quality of learning and providing a safety net for students who face a dismal future without access to school.

The goal of the Roger Muntu Education Foundation is to continue to make a difference in education. With the help of donations from supporters such as you we will continue to see improvements in this field.

Thanks again for your generous support of our efforts to improve schools in Africa.

Best wishes,

Roger Muntu

Is Extinction Permanent?

Ronan Taylor - TEDx Talk:  Is Extinction Permanent?

Ronan Taylor, a GWCS junior, was one of six youth speakers at a Tedx Talk event in Fairfax, VA on Saturday, May 16, 2015.  The theme of this event was:  The Examined Life.  Ronan gave an illustrated talk entitled 'Is Extinction Permanent?'  Ronan talked about the new, exciting possibilities for cloning extinct animals such as the Pyrenean ibex, the woolly mammoth and even the dinosaurs!  If a species dies can it come back? Can we bring it back? In 2000 a beautiful and majestic species went extinct, the Pyrenean ibex. The last individual dubbed Celia was found dead. A biotech company called Advanced Cell Technology attempted to clone one. They succeeded, but the animal died shortly after it was born. Nowadays technology has improved and I believe we can create a completely healthy ibex. In fact I believe we can do better. Perhaps mammoths, mega fauna and possibly even dinosaurs could be recreated. The ecological and tourist applications are almost endless, but there is one very important question we should be asking. Should we bring back extinct species?

Click Here to view Ronan's talk.

Although most people are familiar with TED Talks, many have not heard about TEDx Talks which are becoming more and more popular in communities around the world.  "TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, 'ideas worth spreading.' It supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community."

A Summer Day at Nationals Park

Mr. Fedinatz and Mr. Mallonee were joined by Josh F., Ben F., Zach and Caleb T., Ryan M, Delia O. and two new students Catherine C. and Ryan N. for a wonderful day at Nationals Park. The weather was perfect, especially after the stretch of brutal humidity and our seats in section 202 were in the shade the entire game. This was also Catherine’s first baseball game and hopefully not her last.

The ride to the ballpark was fun as the students and staff caught up on the happenings of the summer thus far. The actual game was even better. The Mets struck first with 3 in the top of the 4th which made Delia (our token Mets fan) very happy. The Nats responded with one in the bottom of the 4th and it looked  like it was not the Nats day. This all changed in the bottom of the 8th when the Nationals’ bats came alive to score 3 runs and Drew Storen shut the door on the Mets in the top of the 9th which made Josh jump out of his seat with a round of high fives for all.

Our ride home was a hour-and-half journey mostly spent trying to get out of the parking lot. This did not dull our enthusiasm  as the students and our intrepid driver, Mr. Mallonee, took it all in stride. It was great to catch up and meet our two new students who seemed like they have always been part of GWCS.  We would like to thank the students for being so wonderful and representing the Coyote way in all their endeavors.

Mr. F.

Theatre Extravaganza

Theatre Night was a tremendous success. With a theatre class, dwindling after improv season, down to a handful of participants, it was decided to perform one act plays for the end of the year event. Sadly, even with the smaller cast requirements of one acts, we were only able to put together two; but they did not disappoint!

In the first play, The Philadelphia by David Ives, Josh Clark, Ben Foster, and Elliot Bailes delighted the crowd with the metaphysical dilemma of feeling like you’re in one place, while struggling to escape the philosophical pitfalls of another. Josh plays ‘laid back’ to perfection, and Ben has us totally believing he is a man at the ‘end of his rope.’ Elliot seals the deal as the waitress/temptress, who beguiles both men. Hilarious and perplexing, The Philadelphia was great fun to watch!

In the second play, Sure Thing, also by David Ives, Tariq Foraida and Kelley Carlisle portray twenty-somethings who meet in a public place and try to get acquainted. Again, Ives uses metaphysics to drive his point home. Each time a character uses a line that would have, in real life, ended the chance for two people to connect, a bell rings (Loea Kang) and the scene jumps: Sometimes forward, sometimes backwards, and sometimes sideways. It was not an easy script to learn. Many of the lines are repeated, revisited, and used by both characters. Eventually, they survive all the pitfalls (including Elliot Bailes as a ‘sort of’ girlfriend) and eventually leave the establishment together. The audience was on the edge of their chairs waiting to see if they were ever going to work it out, pulling for them and laughing along with them the entire way.

The show was rounded out with poetry and music. Ronan Taylor read the worst poem ever written (My Heart Is A Wiffle Ball/Freedom Pole, By Kristen Stewart) and Kevin Kochel and Emily Meyers enchanted us with mood-setting poems by Carl Sandberg. Mr. Andrews Bashan and Nick Christopherson came out between each play and gave us some upbeat eighties tunes with dueling guitars. Everything that hit the stage was energetic and entertaining.

The backstage managers were Emily Sullivan and Matt Cathell, who did great work keeping everything in order and keeping the show tight. Bobby Sunderland worked the door (the muscle) and Paul Whittington, and Max Ginsberg rounded-out the stage crew.

 

Victory at the Accotink Cardboard Boat Regatta!

Trevor, Paul & Wade (and Dr. Cox in the background)

On a glorious sunny Sunday at Lake Accotink, Dr. Cox's Honors Physics class, in their intrepid craft "Fingerbox" dominated the competition and emerged victorious in the Annual Cardboard Boat Regatta. The team of Wade Carter, Trevor Ferguson, and Paul Whittington won not only the schools, civic groups and scouts category, but also the survivors’ race made up of all boats that were still seaworthy after the individual races. The GWCS team worked on the boat for a month and a half, including every day during the last two weeks before the race. "Getting the shape of the boat together was the hardest part," says Wade. "We were kind of doubting ourselves because it was a rush at the end to finish the boat and we didn't know how it would perform, so it felt good to win." This Saturday marked the 12th time the Honors Physics class has participated in the Cardboard Boat Regatta, and the 5th win of the category. This is the first time GWCS students have won both the category and the survivor’s race. Now next year's class will have some big, cardboard shoes to fill.

A Starry Night ~ GWCS Prom 2015

Prom: 3.5 hours spent and 52,000 calories burned

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Most schools call it the Senior Prom. Some schools call it Junior/Senior Prom. At GWCS it is called Promenade: Freshmen and Sophomores welcome! Let’s be honest, we need participation from all four grades to hold any event. But our underclassmen are better than yours. Because we treat all of our kids like fully invested members of the community, they don’t come across as interlopers and dorks at a social function. They hold their own!

The food was sublime! Hors de oeuvres included beef tenderloin crostini, teriyaki chicken skewers and Swedish meatballs, along with veggies and dip, deviled eggs, assorted cheeses and two desserts! There was plenty to eat and everything was delicious (tiny cheesecake squares were the most popular!).

Then the dancing started! Our DJ, the talented Mr. Muntu, rocked the house! The lights were spectacular and the dancefloor was crowded for the entire evening. There were just enough breaks for cold drinks to keep the prom-goers alive!

The place remained packed until the overhead lights came on and scared them away. Taking their free gifts and beautiful gift mugs (stiffed with chocolate), they parted in a euphoria that can only be attained when spirits run high on dancing, and Pepsi, and horseradish sauce.

Thanks again to the SGA, Mr.Goldie,  Ms. Mauney, Ms. Sinichko, and Jodie K. for making this awesome event so awesome. See you next year!

GWCS COYOTE ROBOTICS A YEAR IN REVIEW

Coyote Robotics, Inc. recently completed a very successful 2014-2015 season of participation in the FIRST Tech Challenge program. Over the course of the season, 19 students participated in one or more activities. Three of these were not GWCS students and 9 of them had previously had no experience with robotics. Two past participants now in college returned again to help coach and mentor our teams. Many moms and dads contributed a lot to drive, supervise, mentor, design T-shirts, feed and cheer on our teams. One or both of our teams participated in five official FTC Qualifying or State Championship tournaments, with Team 3749 League of Incompetent Gentlemen taking a Winning Alliance trophy in the Northern Virginia Qualifier and

Team 965 Bionic Renegades winning the Control Award trophy in the Eastern Virginia Qualifier. Together the two teams also took 3rd place in the Off-Season “Battle In The Burg”.

We participated in four other events, including workshops, scrimmages and demonstrations and even hosted our 3rd annual Coyote Robotics scrimmage, bringing about 40 guests to GWCS giving our school and program increased visibility. Educationally, 14 students earned at least one quarter credit for Robotics with 11.75 total credits earned.

In an exciting surprise, we were selected by the Virginia FTC Program Director to be one of three teams representing Virginia at the FTC Asia Pacific Invitational Tournament in Sydney, Australia this coming July. We currently expect to have three students, two coaches and a few family members participating as Team 3749 League of Incompetent Gentlemen.

The FTC 2015-2016 Season has officially begun though we will not learn what the game will be until the first Saturday in September. However, one significant change this year for FTC is the move away from the Lego NXT platform to a new Android-based platform. This will change and improve communication between the Drivers and the Robots, frequently as source of frustration. It will also necessitate a move from RobotC to Java for the programming language. Fortunately, the language structures are very similar and Java should be easier to learn (and more useful) than was RobotC. I’m also happy to announce that Robert Carlisle, Kelley’s dad, has offered to help mentor this year. He will serve as head coach of one of our two teams this coming year.

Gary Lindner
Coyote Robotics Teacher