LHS Students Ace Academic Challenges

Multiple student teams were recognized at Monday's Board of Education meeting for their recent outstanding performance in a variety of academic challenges and competitions.

Students participated in math, science, computer, history and writing competitions.  Superintendent Dr. Brad Draeger and members of the board presented students with official proclamations to honor their achievements.

And the winners are:

New Jersey Science Olympiad: Livingston's joint Division B (6th through 9th grades) Science Olympiad Team placed first at the New Jersey Institute of Technology Regional Competition in January and took home medals for 13 out of 16 events.

The team was then invited to the New Jersey Science Olympiad State Tournament and placed 9th with a score that was 21 points higher than last year.

Team members include Jason Cai, Dylan Camche, Jeffrey Chen, Puja Deshpande, Amanda Glatt, Menglong Guo, Austin Jia, Nanaditha Lakshmanan, Shira Li, Nikita Maheshwari, Nathan Minovich, Alex Nie, Suchan Park, Christina Qiu, Jeanna Qiu, David Shoyket, Aria Soltani, Oriana Tanf, Christopher Tseng, Grant Wu, Catherine Yang, Eric Yu and Evan Zou.  The students were coached by Pat Folinusz and Jennifer Wirt, with assistance from David Richards

NJIT Programming Contest: Students Saagar Deshpande, Robert Fidler and Collin Stocks won third place in the 2010 NJIT High School Programming Contest held in March at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.  

During the competition, Livingston's team had to complete a programming assignment; teams were ranked according to the number of correct programs they delivered.  Livingston's team competed against 20 teams.

Moody's Mega Math Challenge: The M3 Challenge is an Internet-based competition that spotlights applied mathematics as a problem solving tool. During the challenge, the teams have 14 hours to solve an open-ended applied-math-modeling problem focused on a real world issue.  The theme this year was "Making Sense of the 2010 Census: To Count or Not to Count; That is the Question."

Livingston's team comprised of Saagar Deshpande, Stephanie Chen, Tim Kunisky, Collin Stocks and David Li were one of 31 teams to receive Honorable Mention, out of 531 competing teams.

Another Livingston team with Joy Ming, Kelly Zhang, Michael Bao, Kevin Shi and Jonathon Rockower made it through the first round and were in the top 20 percent of the teams. Students were coached by Anna Houben and Gail Pogach.

14th Annual Elizabeth Ann Seton Center for Women's Studies Writing  Contest: Kelly Ng was awarded first place for her essay in the contest, which was held during Women's History Month and sponsored by the Ann Seton Center at Seton Hall University.

North Jersey Regional Science Fair: The North Jersey Regional Science Fair is a competition in which students, either in groups or individually, present projects on a wide variety of topics, mostly investigative in nature, posing and attempting to answer some question or problem with experimentation, design or theory. 

Salma Latif placed first in Behavioral Sciences and won the Rutgers Student Award, Army Achievement Award and American Psychological Association Award.

Joy Ming placed second in Behavioral Sciences.

Collin Stocks placed second in Mathematics and Computer Science and won the Special Computing Award and the David S. Young Memorial Award, the Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award and the Pascal Bloh-Navy/Marine Corps Distinguished Achievement Award.

Jeff Yan won the Material Science Award.

Deborah Rothbard and Sarah Cimbol won the Army Achievement Award.

Dharti Patel placed first in Health and Physiology

Students were coached by Brian Carey and Dr Nuni Walsh.

Model UN: Model UN is an academic simulation that aims to educate students about civics, current events, effective communication, multilateral diplomacy and global awareness. Livingston's team competed in a 2-day event at St. Peter's College in Jersey City in March.

Alex Roos and Moshe Pasternack participated in the Model UN Summit on the Environment and received Honorable Mention Delegation.

Krishan Kania and Mayer Chalom participated in the Disarmament and International Security category and received Honorable Mention Delegation. 

Spencer Luster participated in the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committe and received Honorable Mention Delegate.

Students were coached by Daniel Ippolito and Pearl Silver.