Fragments: Vision

Fragments Spring 2017

Submit your original poetry, short stories, essays, artwork, or photography on the topic "Vision" to win a prize and the chance to be published in Fragments, Mepham's literary magazine. The deadline is Thursday, April 20th. Place all entries in Mrs. Maresca's mailbox or email them to FragmentsEmail@gmail.com.

ELITE Event: BreakoutEDU

Cartoon from School Library Journal

Mepham's MakerSpace will be hosting a BreakoutEDU on Tuesday, March 28th in Conference Room 114 **Note - This event is limited to the first 14 students that sign up**

Escape the Room – Have you been to one of the many "Escape the Room" locations that have popped up on Long Island over the last couple years? If so, you already know that they are a ton of fun! If not, then have we got a surprise for you! The Breakout EDU Kit, brings the "Escape the Room" experience right to you here at Mepham! You will have 44 minutes to “break” into the box by following clues posted or hidden in the room, sidestepping the red herrings, and working together to beat the clock.

Any questions? Please come see Ms. Stack in the library. You can sign up here.

UPDATE: They got out with more than a few minutes to spare! 

Mepham freshman break out!

SMART amp

From the makers of SMART comes SMART amp, an online collaborative learning software platform that enables students to create and collaborate on a digital canvas, anywhere, anytime. There are 3 ways it works, you can:

1. Add a class: Add a new class or import classes from Google Classroom.
2. Join a class: Join a class by entering the class code that your teacher provided. After your teacher finishes creating or editing the class, you can select it above.
3. Go to workspaces: Work without connecting to a class but with access to your Google Drive and workspaces.

3 different options to use SMART amp.

From the Chrome Web Store: "A collaborative workspace where you can share and work on a variety of lesson content. SMART amp brings the whole class, groups of students or individuals together in a shared space to work on projects, add multimedia content and instant message. This is all done using student devices and while tracking contributions from each student, so educators have insight into who is contributing what.

Selection of templates to choose from. 

• Leverages Google Apps for Education to take co-creation, collaboration and student-led learning to a whole new level. 
• Switch from whole class, individual, small-group learning activities without wasting class time.
• Assess and guide students, without having to interrupt learning.
• Contribute to the workspace from anywhere, at anytime. 
• Ideal for Chromebooks, and any other student device or interactive display.
• Integration, including class lists, with Google Classroom.
• Import Notebook lessons, view in full screen and interact with content.
• Easily see the contributions made by each student during group work.
• Take over the workspace at any time to demonstrate and describe work to students."

SMART amp workspace.

Kara Thomas: The Darkest Corners

Young adult author, Kara Thomas visited Mepham High School on Tuesday, March 21st at 2:15 p.m. in the school library. She read a small section from her latest novel, The Darkest Corners, then answered questions from our students. Next, we raffled off four copies (plus one for the Mepham Library), which Ms. Thomas autographed. If you are interested in reading this novel, come check it out.

Author Kara Taylor answers questions from our students.

Raffle winners show off their books!

Author Visit: Kara Thomas

One of the most anticipated events in the school library year after year is our author visit. Kara Thomas (then using the pen name Kara Taylor) visited Mepham High School back in 2014. Read all about her first visit here. She wrote the Prep School Confidential series (St. Martin’s Press) and the pilot The Revengers for the CW under the pen name Kara Taylor. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or on the couch with her rescue cat, Felix.

She will be joining us once again on Tuesday, March 21st at 2:15 p.m. in the school library. There will be a reading from her latest novel, The Darkest Corners, a Q&A period, a book raffle and a book signing and photo op session.

This event is sponsored by the National English Honor Society and is a sanctioned ELITE event. All students are welcome to attend.

About the book 

"There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania.

Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.

Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.
Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.
But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.
Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away."

MakerSpace: 3D Printer

Afinia H400

You asked. We delivered. When we officially opened the Mepham MakerSpace in September 2015, the student's #1 request was to add a 3D printer. Well, thanks to a generous donation from the Mepham Alumni Association, we now have the Afinia H400.

Here are a few items we have printed so far to test out our new 3D printer: a book card holder, a Batman book page holder ring (Confession: I didn't even know what this was, but apparently a book ring is a tool that you use to hold your book open with one hand - genius!), and a pirate doubloon because we are the Mepham Pirates, obviously!

Printed using our Afinia H400.

 About the Afinia H400
The Afinia H400 3D printer is perfectly built with ease of use, safety, and reliability combined in its elegant design that will fit on any desktop. The printer produces dimensionally-accurate plastic parts for education, design, or engineering applications.

The printer is fully-enclosed with a built-in, recirculating HEPA 7 air filtration system that continually cleans the air in the enclosure of particulates and odors as the model is printing. The H400 also has power failure protection. If power is cut to the printer, it will remember where it left off and allow you to finish the print after power resumes.

The Afinia H400 3D printer has a large touchscreen display and built-in WiFi to allow the system to be operated either locally or remotely. The new Afinia 3D Studio software allows prints to be sent not only from PC or Mac, but also from iOS devices such as iPads and iPhones.

The H400 platform comes factory-leveled and does not require adjustments and has auto-nozzle-height detection. The H400 has a new feature allowing for custom temperature setting of the nozzle and heated platform to allow for printing of not only ABS and PLA, but other materials requiring different temperatures.

Book business card holder made on our 3D printer 

Breakout EDU

Have you been to one of the many "Escape the Room" locations that have popped up on Long Island over the last couple years? If so, you already know that they are a ton of fun! If not, then have I got a surprise for you!

Mrs. Geller's Senior Leadership classes take on Breakout EDU.

The library recently purchased a Breakout EDU Kit, which brings the "Escape the Room" experience right to you here at Mepham! Breakout EDU is an immersive learning games platform. "Breakout EDU creates ultra-engaging learning games for people of all ages. Games (Breakouts) teach teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting participants with challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem-solve. K-12 Breakouts can be used to teach core academic subjects including math, science, history, language arts, and have embedded standards that apply problem solving strategies within a real world OR collaborative context."

We tested the kit out in Ms. Geller's Senior Leadership classes today. Some photos above show how the students used their skill set to solve problems. There were so many lessons learned during the course of the game and during the reflection afterward. If you want to find more information on how it works, click here.

Will you be able to escape? Look for an upcoming Breakout EDU ELITE event soon!

Open Mic Night

Literary Circle: The Help

Join Literary Circle as they discuss the New York Times bestselling novel, The Help by Kathryn Stockett on Wednesday, March 8th at 2:30 PM in room 232. This is an ELITE event. You can sign up by clicking here.

About The Help
"Skeeter returns home to Mississippi from college in 1962 and begins to write stories about the African-American women that are found working in white households, which includes Aibileen, who grieves for the loss of her son while caring for her seventeenth white child, and Minny, Aibileen's sassy friend, the hired cook for a secretive woman who is new to town."

Be the Source of Change

We are celebrating Teen Tech Week with the theme "Be the Source of Change," March 5-11, 2017. Teen Tech Week is when libraries make the time to showcase all of the great digital resources and services that are available to help teens succeed in school and prepare for college and 21st century careers. This year's theme encourages teens to take advantage of all the great digital resources offered through the library to make a positive change in their life and community.

The Mepham High School Library has so many great digital resources, such as:

• eBooks
• Databases
• Audio books
• DVDs
• 3D Printers
• Computers/Chromebooks/iMacs/iPads
• MakerSpace resources 
• Computer Club (which meets most Monday afternoons)

Literary March Madness

Thanks to Ms. Elefterion from Calhoun High School who gave me the idea for Literary March Madness. Last year, she successfully picked sixteen titles to face off against each other. This year, we are going to do the same. We will survey the students of Mepham High School to see which book is the most popular. During each week in March, students are invited to choose their favorite book of each match up to proceed onto the next round. Each vote will be entered in a raffle for a Barnes & Noble gift card.

Mepham Library Bulletin Board

These are your Sweet 16:

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Divergent by Veronica Roth
3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck 
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
9. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
10. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
11. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccolt 
12. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
13. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
14. A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
15. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
16. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan  

ELITE 8

These are your Elite 8:

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccolt 
7. A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
8. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Final 4

These are your Final 4:

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

The Game

The Game:

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

THE WINNER!!!! 2017 Book of the Year in Mepham's Literary March Madness is: 

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Winner