WHB Seventh Graders Show off their Science Smarts

Students from Lisa Menegio’s science class at Westhampton Beach Middle School gave district administrators a lesson in science during the school board’s Jan. 24 school board meeting.

Five students, including Tyler Hill, Clair Beaver, Nick Filippelli, Arianna Brierton and Taylor Gregory each gave a presentation, showing off what they have learned in their life science class.

In giving their various presentations, the students managed to stump board members on basic cell structure and genealogy questions.

Beaver kicked off the presentation by showing a video she made on her school-loaned Apple computer. She turned learning into fun by making a music video to Lady Gaga’s song, Bad Romance.  She transformed the song into a learning tool about the make-up of a cell.

In her video Bever dances and sings lines to Lady Gaga’s tune like, “The nucleus is the brains of it all, it controls the cell right out to the wall, the nuclear envelope protects it well.”

Board members applauded Bever’s efforts and were further impressed when Beaver’s teacher pointed out that Beaver went so far as to translate certain verses of Lady Gaga’s song in French.

Tyler Hill was up next and presented his project, a game he created, called Beyond Cell Basics.

Hill said he based his game on the game, Candy Land.

Hill challenged the school board members to play his game and Aram Terchunian, president of the school board, stood to face off against the seventh grader.

Fellow board members cheered on the two contestants with each questioned asked, but in the end, Terchunian was outsmarted by the Hill.

Also making a presentation was Filippelli, who tested the school board with a power point presentation that he made on solving a Punnett Square problem.

To make the presentation engaging, Filippello created two lacrosse stick characters, Mikey and Karri, who have a baby.  After giving a lesson in recessive and dominant genes, Filippello provided a Punnett Square problem to solve: What color hair would Mikey and Karri’s baby have.

Brierton and Gregory made their presentation together.  They showed off a newsletter that they created with their computers that highlighted what a designer baby is.  They researched their information on the Internet and presented it along with photos, art and text to teach their fellow students about genetically designed babies.

Board members said they were more than impressed with the students’ work.  They said their work also showcases just how well the district’s computer initiative is working.

While the school district has been providing personal laptops to some students since 2004, last year it beefed-up the program and opted to give every student in grades 4 through 12 their own Apple MacBook to use while enrolled in the school district at a cost of about $633,000 a year.

Students across the board have been using the laptops for projects such as those presented by the science students at the board meeting.  That work and the district’s fostering of a student-centered learning curriculum has earned the district an Apple School of Distinction title from Apple.

An award to that end was presented to the school board during the meeting. 

“This is a very prestigious award,” said Lynn Schwartz.

According to Schwartz, of 15,000 school districts across the nation, only 52 have been selected as Apple School’s of Distinction, with Westhampton Beach School District being one of them.

Schwartz said he was more than pleased to accept the award and praised the district’s faculty, administrative staff and students for always working hard.