ThinkQuest Winners
Six High School North freshmen were the first place winners in the national ThinkQuest competition, sponsored by Oracle: Masuma Ahuja, Cong Ding, Jenny Liang, Peter Maa, Ray Masaki, and Isaac Cheng. Community Middle School principal Arthur Downs sponsored the team and Douglas Harman, a teacher at Community Middle School, was the coach.
The winning website, “Human Playground,” deals with genetic engineering and was selected by an international panel of professional educators, The team will travel to San Francisco to the ThinkQuest Live, an educational conference and awards event in December.
Science Olympiad
High Schools North and South, as well as Grover and Community middle schools all placed at or near the top in the 2005 New Jersey Science Olympiad regionals.
In overall results Community Middle School placed first in division B. Grover placed fourth. High School South placed first in division C and North placed fourth. Several events were canceled due to snow conditions.
Students from Community Middle School include Shir Aharon, Victoria Chang, Isaac Cheng, Moya Chin, Gregory Doidge, Gitanjali Gnanadesikar, David Goldfinger, Jamie Joseph, Jonathan Kaufman, Taylor Lee, Kathy Li, Peter Maa, Priya Marathe, Monika Mostowy, Vidya Nandapurkar, Ryan Pais, Lekha Racharia, Aparna Shankar, and Aparajit Sriram.
Grover students include Kirsten Parratt, Brianna Neirdlka, Ronak Gandi, Alex Huang, Piyush Poddar, Jennifer and Megan Kao, Liz Lui, Pratik Nadkar, Emma Rosen, Aditi Gupta, Sundershan Srinivasav, Aditya Tandon, Andrew Pinelli, Pooja Kolkarri, Sonal Somlya, Adita Girish, and Manu Venkatesawnan.
The state finals will be held in Edison on Tuesday, March 15, with a snow date of March 16. For information visit www.nyscienceolympiad.org.
Presidential Scholars
Three students in the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District have been selected as candidates for the United States Presidential Scholars Program. Yifei Chen, High School North; Joanne Yuan, High School North; and Lisa Miller, High School South, were chosen on the basis of their accomplishments in many areas including academic and artistic success, leadership, and involvement in the school and the community.
Established in 1964, the Presidential Scholars Programs recognizes and honors the nation’s most distinguished graduating seniors. Annually, up to 141 students are chosen from among the outstanding graduation seniors to become Presidential Scholars, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students.
Educator of the Year
Joan Ruddiman, a teacher of gifted and talented students in the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District, has been selected as one of the two educators of the year by the New Jersey Association for Gifted Children. She will be honored on Friday, March 4.
A middle school teacher in the district for 18 years; Ruddiman has been involved in PRISM (Performance Reveals Individual Student Magic) — the WW-P gifted and talented program — for 16 years. She now serves as the coordinator and facilitator of the PRISM program at Grover Middle School. She graduated from Douglass College as an English major and received a doctorate in curriculum and teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Ruddiman is involved with teacher training for New Jersey’s ROGATE and Cognetics programs, the New Jersey History Day program, as well as local, regional, and national workshops for the National Middle School Association and the International Reading Association. In addition, she works with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the Praxis program, and assisted in the development of “Understanding Standards-Based Assessment,” a teacher-training program.
School Spirit
Sean Willard and Nick Miele, High School North seniors, are promoting extreme school spirit with spirit gear through their new website, www.blueholegear.com. Their self-designed hoodies — with the Blue Hole logo and the Northern Knights mascot — have been popular at recent basketball and hockey games.
Through the website, up and running since January 19, over 100 orders for tee shirts and the signature hoodie have been received. Using creativity and inside knowledge about what will attract the high school kid these days, their designs include generic sayings as well as school spirit wear. Blue Hole sweatshirts are available in gray for $25 and black for $30. I (heart) Marty Flynn, the athletic director, sell for $10. Blue tee-shirts labeled “blue” are $10 and black shirts labeled “hole” are $10. “I’ve Got Senioritis ‘05” shirts are $15. “Blue Hole Construction” shirts are $15.
Willard and Miele are seeking business sponsors to give discounts to students wearing Blue Hole gear. For information visit the website or call 609-275-1412.
Dean’s Lists
University of Connecticut: Lauren Elizabeth Chan, West Windsor.
Georgetown University: Katharine Lang, freshman, West Windsor, a graduate of Lawrenceville School, Class of 2004.
Megan E. Di Sciullo, West Windsor. A graduate of High School North, Class of 2002, she is majoring in international business and marketing. She interned at Watson Wyatt, a global health consulting company, and is spending her second semester at the University of Sydney, Australia, and at Georgetown’s summer business program in Hong Kong.
Keene State College: Andrew Reed Hoppe, Plainsboro.
Graduate
Susan Gaul of West Windsor was one of 18 Mercer County College students who earned her associate nursing degree in January. She will take her nursing board exam this month.
