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Back to Artwork Pop Art Back to Sections Julio Turcios - Pop Art By Julio Turcios January 14, 2022 Acrylic Volume 2 Issue 3

Back to Articles News Back to Sections Goodbye Ms. Suarez! By Elaine Ching Volume 2 Issue 7 June 13, 2022 Original photography by Mrs. Mansfield From being the advisor to multiple clubs to teaching in the Special Ed department and co-teaching in many subject areas, Ms. Suarez is wrapping up her North High School career, which began in 1988, this year. During recent years here at North, Ms. Suarez has served as the sole advisor to the Culture Society since the club was created just a few years ago. It is dedicated to exploring and teaching about different cultures. She has brought in speakers and special guests to share at club meetings. Due to her involvement and dedication, she helped multiple North students with the ability to experience new cultural foods and celebrations, along with registering the club with UNICEF to help those in need further as North pilots our first-ever chapter. As well as organizing multiple events over the years, this year’s International Night tickets were sold out, with students lining up after school to see if they could somehow still buy one and attend. That event is usually a big hit and includes food, dancing, and a fashion show contest. Ms. Suarez has proven herself to be a fantastic and hardworking advisor. Furthermore, Ms. Suarez also serves as co-advisor to the National Junior Honor Society at North. She helped with the beautifying of the courtyard alongside many NJHS members, as well as helping provide many NJHS members with service opportunities that helped them keep up with their service hour commitments. Not only this, but she cared about the NJHS members outside of their service at North, as she offered many activities and support for them. After speaking with a student who had Ms. Suarez as a teacher, they described her as a wonderful influence who pushed them to be their very best at math. In addition, the student said that they did try harder after being pushed. They said that this year was a difficult one for their academics due to the previous years with the coronavirus, so having a good teacher truly helped them. Also, they were saddened to hear that this would be Ms. Suarez’s last year as a teacher at North High School. This positive feedback demonstrates that Ms. Suarez is a wonderful advisor and a motivational teacher. Some quotes from North students who were thankful for having Ms. Suarez as a teacher/advisor: “She is motivated and enthusiastic when learning about other cultures, I’m really going to miss her” “Ms. Suarez was a wonderful advisor; I don’t know what I’m going to do next year without her!” “It’s a shame that she’s retiring, but I wish her all the best!” Some quotes from her North co-teachers: “After one of my colleagues inherited my co-teaching class with Ms. Suarez, I warned her: ‘She makes you work harder than you can ever imagine!’ She’s that dedicated to every aspect of her work and is always advocating for her students.” “She is a ROCK STAR co-teacher and an inspiration. She never stops working or thinking about her students and their needs, both academic and social-emotional. I never would have survived quarantine or hybrid teaching without her. She keeps in constant contact with her kids and their families and teachers – never accepting anything less than their best. And she gets it from them, and they succeed and move on. Her students and co-teachers are so fortunate to have her working for them, and I don’t know what we are going to do around here without her!” While the North community is saddened to see Ms. Suarez leave, we wish her all the best in her future adventures! BACK TO TOP

Back to Articles Sports Back to Sections Athletes Supporting Athletes at VSN By Joseph Garofalo Volume 2 Issue 2 November 19, 2021 Original image by Joseph Garofalo Valley Stream North Athletics is known as a strong dark horse program in Nassau County with stealthy good sports teams across the board. From volleyball to soccer, track and field to baseball, each program has seen its success rates rise over the past few years, even as players and coaches come and go. As the captain of the reigning Conference Champion Boys Volleyball team, I have seen the strong mentality, determination, and resilience needed to grow a program within our sports programs. My experience as a high school athlete has been one like no other; coaches support coaches, athletes support athletes, and the leadership on each team has been a large part of growing these programs. Starting September 13th, the first Girls Volleyball game of the season, the senior class had produced a plan to support our Lady Spartans as they took on conference rivals, Mepham. We wanted to create a true home-court advantage for our girls, an energy-filled atmosphere to help boost them to victory. As my practice was over, my teammates and I waited in the stands as the visitors arrived. Quiet at first, our girls began to turn up the pace, and the fans became more involved. A student section that started with just the 13 boy volleyball players evolved into a section packed with three varsity teams and two Junior-Varsity teams’ players within thirty minutes. This was only the beginning, as the girls went on to sweep Mepham in three sets, who were at the time second-place team in their conference. A dominant effort by the girls, supported by a crowd of over 100 kids, continued throughout the season and trickled into other sporting events. The student section began to grow for each game; VSN’s athletes were there for each other. When you weren’t playing or practicing, athletes were in the stands. As our fall season ended and playoffs loomed, our section was the largest it had ever been. Home or away, volleyball or football, we supported each other. With the backing of our student body, Valley Stream North sports has hit another level of extreme. Now, we hope to carry the energy into the upcoming winter and spring seasons and lead our Spartan athletes to more successful winning seasons. BACK TO TOP

Back to Artwork Lights On for Education Back to Sections Toxic Ball By Elizabeth Andre April 22, 2021 Digital Art Volume 1 Issue 7

Back to Articles Science & Technology Back to Sections Hair Ice Cody Sung Volume 4 Issue 1 November 6, 2023 Image provided by Hair ice: By Vielfalt - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98907791 Fungus: By Jerzy Opioła - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38872654 Have you ever heard of hair ice? It’s silky, elongated, reminiscent of hair. It shouldn’t be able to exist since recrystallization, which breaks the shape, should happen very quickly. And yet it doesn’t. When and where can you find it? How does this happen? Hair ice is a rare phenomenon to encounter. It is only found on dead wood in forests between the latitudes of 45 and 55 degrees north, encompassing the forested parts of the northern United States, such as Washington, Montana, Idaho, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Maine, southern Canada, most of Europe, and southern Russia – you can find it in a lot of places around the world, but not in New York! However, it only forms in these forests when the temperature is just below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius) and if it is humid – wet - outside. The ice produced by the wood, hair ice, is thin and silky, forming curls and waves reminiscent of its namesake human hair. Due to its unique shape, it is very brittle, more so than actual ice. Despite the odd shape and how fast recrystallization happens at the temperatures it forms at – it should happen within minutes - how does hair ice stay as it is for up to days at a time? The dead wood has a fungus, Exidiopsis effusa, usually found in hair ice. German and Swiss researchers in 2015 noted that every hair ice sample they found had the fungus on it, indicating that the fungus was the cause of the hair ice phenomenon. Interestingly enough, the possibility of a fungus making ice was proposed over a century ago by the discoverer of continental drift, Alfred Wegener. Unfortunately, the dead wood the fungus lies on cannot produce hair ice for that long; it can only do it for a few years, still an impressive period. The fungus can do this by being on a piece of dead wood and waiting until conditions are right and ice starts to grow on the wood. It can then release recrystallization blockers, so the ice doesn’t immediately recrystallize. However, this process remains mostly a mystery. As a fungus causes it, hair ice on a piece of dead wood is disabled. Additionally, the researchers found hot water has the same effect. However, this has the potential for further exploration. Sources “Hair ice”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_ice “Exidiopsis effusa”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exidiopsis_effusa “45th parallel north”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_parallel_north “55th parallel north”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55th_parallel_north BACK TO TOP

Back to Artwork Line Back to Sections Sienna Munro - What is Line By Sienna Munro November 1, 2020 Photography Volume 1 Issue 1

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Back to Artwork Nostalgic Musings Back to Sections Sophia Song - Nostalgic Musings - 3 By Sophia Song February 10, 2022 Photography Volume 2 Issue 4

Back to Articles Science & Technology Back to Sections The Fifth Ocean By Cody Sung Volume 3 Issue 4 May 18, 2023 Image Provided by Gary Bembridge via Wikipedia There have always been four named oceans on Earth – the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic – until now. Recently there have been five oceans recognized and confirmed, with the Southern Ocean added to the list. At the bottom of the globe, it surrounds Antarctica, and its currents are unique enough for National Geographic to consider it a separate ocean. The Southern Ocean is at the bottom of the Earth, below the 60-degree southern latitude line. Scientists have considered it to be a separate ocean for decades, with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names considering its categorization as a separate ocean since 1999. This is due to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current containing the cold waters around Antarctica around the 60-degree line, forming an ecologically distinct area, with thousands of species living there and nowhere else. Despite the scientific evidence to prove the Southern Ocean was distinct from the others, attempts to make it official in organizations such as the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) were marred in controversy. In 1937, the IHO did recognize the Southern Ocean as distinct, however, they retracted this in 1953, stating that “the majority of opinions received since… 1937 are to the effect that there exists no real justification” for labeling the Southern Ocean. The draft fourth edition does include the Southern Ocean as a separate entity; however, it has never been published due to various naming disputes. Since National Geographic generally follows the IHO with marine names, it has not recognized the Southern Ocean either. However, they have broken from the IHO in labeling the Southern Ocean as an ocean. The Southern Ocean is unique and recognized by scientists, however, it has had a long history of not being recognized on the world map. That has now changed for the benefit of the scientific world. Sources: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/theres-a-new-ocean-now-can-you-name-all-five-southern-ocean https://iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-23/S-23_Ed3_1953_EN.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20140201213815/http://eastsea.khoa.go.kr/eng/open_content/iho/magazine.asp BACK TO TOP

Back to Articles Science & Technology Back to Sections Artemis I – NASA’s Return to The Moon By Elyas Layachi Volume 3 Issue 1 November 7, 2022 Image provided by NASA On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first human to walk on the Moon, uttering his famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he exited the lunar module. Out of the 15 total Apollo Missions, seven landed on the moon, with a total of twelve astronauts setting foot on the moon between 1969 and 1972. Since the Apollo moon landing, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has focused most of its resources on Low-Earth Orbit activities, including the Space Shuttle Program (1981 – 2011), the development of various space telescopes, and the construction and use of the International Space Station (1993 – present). However, NASA is not currently diverting all its resources to the ISS. With the help of private industries such as SpaceX and Boeing, NASA is using some of its resources to create both the Space Launch System, the world’s most powerful three-stage rocket system, and the Orion space capsule, the next-generation space capsule (based on the Apollo capsule’s design) that will be used to send humans to the Moon and even Mars soon. NASA created its Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion space capsule for its Artemis 1 Moon Program to return to the moon by the end of the decade. Construction on the Space Launch System began in 2011 by NASA and was completed in 2021. The super rocket can produce 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust during its launch and can be modified in several ways for different types of missions. According to NASA, the Orion spacecraft will serve “as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency and capability, sustain astronauts during their missions and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.” Its heat shield is designed similarly to that of the Apollo capsule, but Orion is larger and can house four astronauts as opposed to three. Artemis 1, the first in a series of Artemis missions, will be the first unmanned flight test of both components of Artemis: SLS and the Orion spacecraft. SLS will launch Orion into Earth orbit while releasing 10 small satellites, and Orion will use its propulsion systems to maneuver around the moon and return to Earth. The launch was originally planned for August 2022, but NASA delayed the launch to October 2022 due to rocket malfunctions and tropical storm Ian. The new launch date is now November 14th, 2022, with a launch window opening at 12:07 AM Eastern. If all goes well and Artemis 1 proves to be successful, NASA will continue to work through its Artemis timeline, preparing for Artemis 2, the first scheduled crew mission of NASA’s Orion Spacecraft and SLS. It has a planned mission duration of 10 days and is expected to be launched in May 2024. In total, the Artemis program plans to have three launches, but that is subject to change depending on the results of those launches. Artemis 1 is paving the way for humans to set foot once again on the Moon. As NASA says in their launch advertisements, “We are going back to the moon!” Be sure to tune in to NASA’s social media live streams on November 14th, 2022, to witness history in the making. BACK TO TOP