Clubs and Activities

DEBATE CLUB

Sent: Sunday, October 6, 2019
Subject: Debate Tournament Results

Good Evening,

This weekend was our very first debate tournament of the school year. We took four total teams to compete:

Open (advanced) Division
Noah Y. and Jayden T.
Crisleidy C., Marryiam H., and Caylin C.

Novice Division
Akosua G., Jaylee H., and Edwinah M.

Beginner Division
Elias B., Accalia B., Armando K.

While we didn’t win any team medals or trophies at this tournament, we won a number of individual awards.

Marryiam, Crisleidy, and Caylin all received individual speaker medals for being three of the top performers at the tournament. We’ve never had all the members of a team recieve speaker medals before, so that was a nice first for our team. Additionally, Marryiam and Crisleidy have been competing since sixth grade, but this was the first speaker medals for each of them.

The UDL has started a new Beginners Division this year. It is a hybrid of a workshop and mini-tournament for people who are brand new to Debate. It is also a division that the private schools in our league are not allowed to enter. They gave out three total awards for this division. One of the awards was titled “Most Outstanding Performer” and our very own Accalia Bowe won the inaugural award.

I had really high hopes for Jaylee, Akosua, and Edwinah, and was frankly pretty surprised (read really frustrated) to see them shut out in their division. I’m curious to get the ballots back to see what happened for them, but please give them plenty of support as they were all a tad discouraged.

Noah and Jayden were really just there to have fun and see their friends from Debate Camp over the summer, so I think they were happy with how their day went.

Please shout out all these scholars when you see them this week!

Best,

Max

MATH CLUB

On Sat, Jan 18, 2020

Today five 8th grade scholars trekked through the weather to compete in the 16th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Math Competition in the Bronx. Jayden T, Ihsanah, Seun Abdoulaye and Noah all took part in a two and a half hour long competition against 36 other 8th grade scholars. In the end, only Jayden was presented with a trophy, placing 5th amongst all 8th graders.  They had a blast and were not stopped at all by the snow and cold.

They are anxiously looking forward to our next competition Saturday February 1 at the MLK high school in Manhattan and the addition of their 6th and 7th grade counterparts!

-Math Team

NATIONAL JUNIOR HONOR SOCIETY

RISING LEADERS

Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2020 1:44 PM
Subject: Rising Leaders Workshop #5

Good afternoon!

Today was a workshop with a looot of laughter. We began the day early for a video game competition: leaders versus mentors (stay tuned for a more organized competition in May). Today’s song: Formation by Beyonce. The task? “Getting in formation” with a team–so, teamwork!

We did the timeless spaghetti marshmallow building competition. The twist today is that in the first round it was mentors and leaders, in the second, only leaders could collaborate. In the end, the winning structure was 41 inches tall. The teams managed to semi-melt marshmallows to make a paste and reinforce their structure. Pretty smart! We talked about the strength of triangles versus double-helix structures (shoutout math and science!).

In the end, scholars all explained their process and how teamwork went. For one team, it wasn’t the most productive environment, but we were proud in the end they were able to respectfully critique their own structure and find positives about what their teammates contributed. (Shoutout to Akosua for a phenomenal speech on the importance of collaboration).

In lieu of a group photo, those who wanted to were invited to do a TikTok instead (we’ve all never felt older). Khalil’s version came out super blurry, but he insists I send it to everyone anyway, haha.

Have a great weekend!

STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION