The AC Blog

Discovery, Collaboration & Community in the 2018 May Term (Part 1)

Posted on June 1st, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

Every year at the end of the spring semester, Middle and Upper School students at Allendale Columbia complete their usual curriculum and begin May Term. May Term exists to provide educational opportunities outside of the normal structures of the school year to support intellectual discovery, encourage collaboration, and foster community involvement.

Here are some May Term highlights so far this year:

• Students learned about honey bees, built a beehive, planted flora that bees love, and installed a starter colony of bees at the school garden in the “Buds and Bees” course led by Mrs. Guzzetta and Mr. Costanzo. Students will continue to monitor the hive and harvest honey in the fall.
  
• A panel of judges from the AC Kitchen and maintenance evaluated student culinary creations in a Master Chef-type competition, with students presenting the science behind the creation of those food items in the “Science of Cooking” course led by Ms. Crosby and senior Gio Martino.
  
• In “Human Impacts on the Environment”, AC students worked with students from the World of Inquiry School 58 at a Water Quality Summit in Rochester to understand the Genesee River ecosystem, which was featured on WROC and WXXI. Mrs. Lisi and Mr. Godkin led this session.
  
• In “Life Underwater”, students explored the flora and fauna in Corbett’s Glen with Mrs. Guzzetta.
       
• Students visited the Women’s Rights Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls as part of “Nevertheless, She Persisted” (above) with Mr. Neeley

Other topics included:

• Positive Psychology
• The Great Outdoors
• Console Wars: The History of Video Gaming
• Be Here Now: Mindfulness as a Practice
• What do you want to be when you grow up?
• What would Susan and Frederick Think? The Legacy of Rochester’s Agitators
• Muse: Making a Magazine
• Bilingual Theatre
• Building, flying and using drones for media production
• Nicaragua
• Music with Kids
• Confidence & Courage: Dare to Show Up, Be Seen, & Be Brave
• Wheelin’ Through Rochester’s History
• Stigma and Mental Health: Issues and Interventions
• Ornithology Science and Art
• Ableism
• Exhibition Night Planning
• Grow Your Own Food
• Social Impact Filmmaking
• Day Trading and Cryptocurrency Lab
• Making Community Service a Way of Life
• 2019 College Workshop
• The AC Genome Project
• Innocence and Guilt: Learning about the Law

We’ll have additional updates as May Term progresses. Everyone is also welcome to participate in an interactive May Term Exhibition Night where students will discuss their projects on Thursday, May 7th from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

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Experience May Term at Exhibition Night

Posted on June 1st, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

One of the highlights of May Term is our culminating event called Exhibition Night. Each May Term session creates an interactive exhibit with which attendees can participate. Experience exhibits spread across the entire first floor of our school, inside and out. Check out our newest residents in the apiary built during May Term, and taste some of the delicacies created by the Science of Cooking class that investigated the chemistry of cuisine.

This year we will share our learning and experiences on Thursday, June 7th, from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. We hope you join us to learn more about the incredibly innovative work happening during May Term. All Middle and Upper School students are required to attend this integral part of the learning experience. For students, this is a dress-up occasion. The Tom Wahl’s food truck will be in attendance for any families who wish to purchase dinner or snacks as they experience the exhibits! (more…)

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Seniors Present Research at SJFC Symposium

Posted on May 8th, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

Students at Allendale Columbia engage in original research and presents papers and talks for review. Just last month, five AC students in the Science Writing & Research class participated in a symposium at St. John Fisher College in conjunction with SJFC’s symposium on student research and scholarship. These seniors presented their papers before a panel of judges and other observers.

• Aditi Seshadri: Determining the Relationship Between the Fundamental Properties of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles and their Cytotoxicity to E. coli through Self Organizing Maps (SOMs)
• Rui (Tony) Zhou: A Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Lung Nodule Segmentation using Mask R-CNN and DenseNet
• Anjana Seshadri: The Relationship Between Various Chemical Parameters and the Phototoxicity of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: An Analysis Using Self-Organizing Maps
• Jason (JT) Coupal: The Psychological and Physiological Benefits of Virtual Environments
• Tingyan (David) Deng: Using Finite Element Analysis to Determine the Structural Integrity of Allens Creek Bridge

Two others will be presenting their research papers at the May Term Exhibition Night in June.

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Closing Reception for Honors and Seminar Art Exhibitions May 4th

Posted on April 30th, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

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Students, Sorrentino Shine at Digital Rochester’s Women in Technology Breakfast

Posted on April 27th, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

Women are increasingly studying technology and moving into technology careers. Local organization Digital Rochester and their Women in Technology Special Interest Group (SIG) recognized several local women at a breakfast on April 26th, including Allendale Columbia’s Director of Lower School Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Sue Sorrentino as a nominee for their 20th annual Technology Woman of the Year award.

At the event, five young women from AC also received a lot of attention. Fifth graders Victoria Timpani, Ella Herberger, and Maya Sams and talked about their all-girl VEX-IQ Robotics team Girls With Gears, while Liza ’20 and Mary ’22 Cotter showcased robots used in FIRST LEGO League and FTC Robotics competitions and discussed their technology learning and experiences. Their tables were crowded with attendees from large and small businesses in the Rochester area interested in their technological savviness.

Sue Sorrentino left a career in corporate engineering to address the urgency of building STEM fluency in early elementary age children to build and sustain interest in STEM through middle and high school. She and her team at Vista Teach Instructional Services, a company she founded and serves as Executive Director, have developed comprehensive programs in engineering education and optics for grades K-8, both in school and in after-school and summer programs, primarily at AC but also available to other schools. She has trained hundreds of robotics coaches throughout the Greater Rochester Area.

Sorrentino is in great company, as other nominees for the Technology Woman of the Year and Emerging Technology Professional Woman of the Year included women from such organizations as Rochester Regional Health, ITX, Harris Corporation, Datto, Constellation Brands, CloudCheckr, Luminate, KLDiscovery, University of Rochester, RIT, MCC, and Girl Discover It.

Digital Rochester provides events and community services to strengthen and grow the region’s technology community through education and relationship development.

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AC CodeX Club Teams Compete at Lockheed-Martin Code Quest

Posted on April 27th, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

by Elizabeth “Liza” Cotter ’20

On Saturday April 21st, six Allendale Columbia Upper School CodeX club members traveled to sunny Owego, NY, to compete in the 6th Annual Lockheed Martin Code Quest competition.  Code Quest is a 2.5 hour computer programming event where teams of up to three students are challenged to solve a collection of 15-20 questions.

Here’s a question from the 2017 competition:

The home keys on a keyboard are imperative to quick typing if you are a touch typist, but what if you are off just one key? Imagine you accidentally placed your left index finger at D instead of F and your right index finger at H instead of J. 

Translate the following messages as if you were retyping it with the wrong home key finger placement.

Example:
Hickory dickory dock  →  Guxjiet suxjiet sixjm

(If you find problems like this interesting, ask Mrs. Crosby or me for more information about Code Quest and other programming competitions!)

The day started with the competition, which included some difficult problems that required teamwork, persistence, and attention to detail. The most significant item I learned that day was the importance of asking a well-thought-out question when clarification is needed.

We also went on a great tour of the Lockheed Martin plant, including an up-close look at US Navy Seahawk helicopters. While inside the hangar, we learned about the stages of production that each helicopter goes through. The best part was standing in the soundproof chamber of the hangar. We all got to ask questions about the helicopters and about Lockheed Martin and have a closer look at a possible future career path!

AC’s “hACkers” Aditi Seshadri ’18, Anjana Seshadri ’18, and Liza Cotter ’20 competed in the “Advanced” Division. AC’s “Aces” Luke Dioguardi ’20, Matt Duver ’20, and Cameron Perry ’20 competed in the “Novice” category where they won 3rd place and an excellent trophy to add to the AC STEM trophy case!  Even though all six of us are members of the CodeX club, we were all relatively new to programming competitions. This made the competition all the more challenging, and a little scary, but everyone agreed that it was a fun event and that we should return next year.

 

Elizabeth Cotter Liza is a sophomore at Allendale Columbia School. She enjoys being on the Cross Country, Swimming, and Track teams at AC, as well as participating on the Robotics team, Math team, and TEAMS (engineering) team. She spends her (minimal) free time cooking, petting her cats, and watching Emma Chamberlain videos with her sister Mary.

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Creativity Abounds at Evening of the Arts

Posted on March 27th, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

Creativity knows no bounds, as Allendale Columbia School students demonstrated at the biennial Evening of the Arts event on Friday, March 23rd. The exhibition featured over a hundred works of art from students in grades N – 12 displayed throughout the school. This year’s theme was “Art Around the World”.

Honors and Portfolio Seminar Art students plied their craft in the Bruce B. Bates Design and Innovation Lab, previewing their work for the upcoming spring thesis exhibition in April. Senior Madison DeCory appreciated the opportunity to help stimulate artistic creativity in younger students, as she mentioned in an interview with News 8 Rochester: “What we want to do tonight is showcase what we’ve been doing, showcase our talents, and get other students interested in the artwork that we’re doing.”

“It’s a variety of work all the way from photography — we have a black and white darkroom which is incredible for our students to have that experience — to printmaking, painting, drawing, design, digital work, and hands on work,” said Amy Oliveri, AC art teacher and Director of the AC Center for Entrepreneurship. A group of 5th graders even demonstrated their “crankie” from the Lower School musical, “I’m Not Sleepy…Yet!”.

Students working in the Global Engagement Diploma program also participated in a bit of social entrepreneurism, selling handmade baskets from a women’s collective and shade-grown coffee to benefit the program’s partners in El Sauce, Nicaragua.

News 8 Rochester summarized the event on their evening news show.

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AC Teams Take 1st Place in TEAM+S Competition

Posted on March 23rd, 2018 by Allendale Columbia School

by Danielle Fuller, Aditi Seshadri, and Anjana Seshadri

A total of 17 students from Allendale competed in the annual TEAM+S (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science) competition on March 3rd. The 9/10 team and the senior 11/12 team both won first place at this regional competition. For the senior 11/12 team, this win was particularly significant because they toppled 3-year champion McQuaid. (more…)

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