Hillwood Reporter Jordyn

Angela interviews Jordyn

Q: What's your favorite school subject?

A: Literature and sports

Q: What's your favorite animal?

A: A lynx and a lemur

Q: Do you have any pets?

A: I have four cats, and a large English Bull Mastiff named Brutus

Q: What's your favorite singer or singers?

A: I like Big Time Rush, Varsity FanClub, Christina Aguilera, Kristina DeBarge

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

A: A criminal profiler, criminologist, or a criminal psychiatrist.

Q: What college do you want to go to?

A: I would like to go to N.Y.U., or go to a college in England.

Hillwood Herald Reporter Angela

Jordyn interviews Angela

Q: What's your favorite thing to do?

A: I love playing tennis and Flag Football

Q: What's your favorite subject?

A: I enjoy art and math

Q: What's your favorite book?

A: I like the Harry Potter series and The Hunger Games.

Q: What's your favorite type of music?

A: Country and music by Selena Gomez

Q: What's your favorite movie?

A: The Devil Wears Prada

Art is Math?

Have you ever thought I wish I was in art instead of being in math. Well, today Angela and I found out you can do art in math or vice versa. You can just draw spirals or shapes that are connected and color the spaces in as long as the colored in spaces don't touch. When you draw a squiggle, a line in which both lines connect, and weave the lines you draw, you create a snake.

Angela and I drew our own spirals/snakes.The creator of the video said that whatever you draw, the games will work out, but a few times Angela and I messed up and it didn't work.

Where I'm From

I am from computers, from Kleenex and Bounty.I am from the busy, Marina-style home (it smells like cats)I am from the blackberry bushes and the apricot tree.
I am from celebrating New Year’s together and brown eyes, from Igor and Lora and Michael. I am from the electricity savers and the clean freaks.From, “Have a good day,” and “Clean that up.
I am from receiving money on one day during Hanukkah.I’m from Odessa, Ukraine and honey-covered blintz, sometimes filled with cheese.From the grandma who cooked stuffed peppers filled with meat and carrots, the colorful soups she made every chance she got, and the parents who are from clear blue tide waves and sparkly sand.
I am from a dusty drawer who holds with its thick wooden fingers priceless tea sets made of purple and white glass, passed on through generations of my family.
Angela V. 2011

George Ella Lyon was the first person to create a "Where I'm From" poem. Students have been also been making "Where I'm From" poems. All of the current upper graders here in Hillwood have made our own "Where I'm From" poems and posted them on the Hillwood Herald.

The upper graders will be making videos on our "Where I'm From" poems. We will bring in pictures with us or other items from our poems in the picture and make the video with them.

Recycled Village

Angela and I, Anya, are going to create a "village" out of recycled materials: soda bottles, little water bottles, cardboard, yogurt cartons, paper, and tape. Our village will have people made out of cardboard and paper, trees made out of cardboard and green paper, houses made out of yogurt cartons, picnic tables will be made out of the tables found in pizza box, and a wind mill whose base is made out of a a soda bottle and the blades are made out little water bottles.

Give a Planet a Makeover

Today, Angela and I made our own planet! We can control the age, the temperature, the size and the star type (F, G, or M). We also made many different ones and the results we got were:

• Gas Giant
• Earth-like planet
• Super-Earth
• Hot Rock
• Iceball
• Hot Jupitor (or Neptune)

You can start with a default planet (Earth, G1 581, and Mars), and simply design and engineer your planet from there.

Our planet is very close to the sun: very large and hot. Additionally, our star is class G, and it is 7 billion years old. It is called the Hot Jupitor (or Neptune).

The link to this website is Extreme Planet Makeover.

Dance Pad Mania

Angela and I are making a dance pad. So far, we are still figuring it out. Angela is taping the buzzer and the battery to a piece of cardboard. Angela has to restart the whole thing because she taped the buzzer the wrong side up so the microphone out of which the sound comes out of is blocked by the cardboard. Angela and I are planning to make a hole under the buzzer so that the hole out of which the sound come out of is on the side of the hole in the cardboard. Smart!

WE SUCCEEDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!! Now if you press both sides of the battery the buzzer will start buzzing!

We did this challenge after Judy and Adam, engineers and the hosts of DESIGN SQUAD on www.pbskids.org.

Written by: Rubina H. and Angela V.

Fail with the Rubber Band Car :(

Today Angela and I attempted to build a rubber band car. A rubber band car is made up of cardboard, rubber bands, mints, tacky tacky, C.D's, duct tape, and skewers. This is what we used in our project. The cardboard box's could be different. At first, we made an attempt to create a larger one but it didn't end up working. And then I, Jennifer tried to follow the instruction's and make a smaller one but that didn't work at all. I, Angela think the first one didn't succeed because we used to much tacky tacky and duct tape. If anyone wants to make one, many of these materials can be found at a hardware store.

By: Jennifer and Angela

Drawing Walking Cakes -- It's Easy!

Angela and I, Rubina, made two sketches on PBS Kids. We drew waking cakes!

Rubin drew a cake walking on horse hooves, and I, Angela, drew a cake on a skateboard.

The process is quite simple. What you do is make an account on PBS Kids and click on Sketches, which let you draw a sketch. You can post your sketch and give stickers to other sketches by other people. You can also get stickers if other people give you stickers. The more stickers, the more popular your design is.

Written By: Angela V. and Rubina H.

Obama Tells the State of the Union

On January 25th, Obama held a speech, the State of the Union, which started with the topic of jobs. Obama said, "But this shouldn't discourage us. It should challenge us." We have the best colleges and universities in America, worldwide.

Obama asked three main questions: "What do you think of the idea?" What idea, you might ask? The idea Obama is hinting at is the rights of one's rights in America. I, Angela, think that the idea is correct: All people have rights of their own and choices of their own. I, Camryn, agree with Angela. I think everyone should go by their own opinion. Everyone should have equal rights.

The next question Obama asks, is, "What do you want to change about the world?" Camryn thinks that we should be focused on being more green. I'm about to move to Arkansas, where hardly no one recycles. I think that that should change because Earth is our home, and we're killing it. I, Angela, agree with Camryn's thoughts that we should go green. In one-hundred years from now, do you think our planet will be filled with plants and trees if we keep treating it like this? If we want it to stay with plants and animals, we should stop using fuels that harm the earth.

The last question Obama asks is, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" When I, Camryn, grows up, I want to be a paleontologist. I want to be a paleontologist because I am I am interested in the study of plant and animal fossils. I, Angela, want to be an animal cop because some animals are treated horribly by people and I don't see why they deserve it. I want to help animals who are in need and were treated with cruelty.

Can you answer these questions yourself? You can go see the excerpts at the White House Website.

Article by Camryn and Angela

Happy Birthday, Wikipedia!

This weekend, a site that is insane in the way that we type in something and tons of information comes up about it, is going to be the same age as me! Yep, that's right -- 10!

How do 50 employees handle about 400 million viewers? Not only do to the employees handle the definitions so do the viewer. 

Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate because anyone can write on it. It got an 80 percent accuracy and other sources got 95-96 percent in a peer-reviewed journal ("peer-reviewed" means that a publication is reviewed for accuracy and importance by a group of professionals, usually professors and other academics). You can read more about the research here. The following is an excerpt from the study's findings:

The study did reveal inaccuracies in eight of the nine entries and exposed major flaws in at least two of the nine Wikipedia articles. Overall,Wikipedia's accuracy rate was 80 percent compared with 95-96 percent accuracy within the other sources. This study does support the claim thatWikipedia is less reliable than other reference resources. Furthermore, the research found at least five unattributed direct quotations and verbatim text from other sources with no citations. 

As a student, this research is a good reminder that Wikipedia is a good place to start in your search for information. However, it's not a place to stay. Also, an 80 percent accuracy rate -- a low B grade -- isn't terrible, considering that Wikipedia relies so much on the work of volunteers.

You can read Hillwood's Wikipedia page. Irene T., now a Hillwood graduate, wrote it in 2010. Below is our happy birthday video for Wikipedia:




By Clara and Angela

Links: Emerald Insight, NPR, Atlantic

Scientists Discover More About Light Science

Scientists would like to learn more about science, so they set up labs in three places: a mountain near Japan, underground on the border of Switzerland, France, and on the side of a mountain near the Arctic Circle according to Scholastic.

These scientists are learning about particles and other science things by, for example, under the mountain near Japan, they built somewhere called a Super-K.

"The Super-K is six-story-high located more than a mile below Mount Ikenoyama. Inside, walls lined with light-sensing detectors surround a pole of water. When a neutrino hits the water, a tiny cone of light. The detectors see the light and send information about the neutrino to computers."

Thanksgiving Tradition

Last year, at the White House, President Obama and the White House staff spared the life of a 45-pound turkey named Courage. The big, white feathery bird had been lucky. This year, I think Obama will spare another life of a turkey for his daughters. Unfortunately for most turkeys, Thanksgiving is coming and they will be seeing the oven soon. Now that it's almost Thanksgiving, turkeys will be taken of their lives and eaten.

Thanksgiving is when you gather with your family and eat things like "turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, cornbread, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pies like pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and apple pie for dessert." Another tradition some people enjoy during Thanksgiving is get a wishbone. Two people take one end, make a wish and pull on the wishbone. Whoever gets the bigger bone gets their wish. After all this, they would play, rest, or sometimes take a stroll. At the White House, the current president makes a choice of two turkeys, to serve one for Thanksgiving at the White House or to leave them the rest of their lives.

Design Squad Pop Fly, Another PBS Kids Challenge

Today, Angela and I made a pop flier. The pop fliers materials include:

• Duck Tape

• 1 wooden block/spool

• 3-oz paper cups

• Ping pong ball(s)

• 3-5 paint stirrers

Assemble your Pop Flier and try to fly the ping pong ball so that it flies high enough for one to catch it. Now ask yourself:

Did it fly high enough for you to catch it? Was it worth building it?

Now go find your tallest friend and have them try to catch it!

Step by step, our pop flier was a success. First, we got two paint stirrers and taped them together. Then we taped quarter of a cup to the paint stirrers. From there, we taped two full cups below the quarter cups. We added another cup below the paint stirrers about an inch from the other cups. Then we placed two ping ball balls in the quarter cups and at the end of the paint stirrers, we hit it and our ping ball balls shot off.

We tried to catch them but it's hard because there is two of the ping pong balls. Now you try to catch your ping pong balls.

By Camryn and Angela