Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences February 2010 Update

STARGAZER CLASS
Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences
February 2010 Update
This month the Stargazer Class had the honor of leading our school’s community circle. The Stargazers spent many
hours in January brainstorming ideas, voting on what to include, coming up with short scripts and visual aids, and
rehearsing for this monthly event. Here are some photos and captions of the highlights of the event.
The Stargazers chose “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles for their entering song. Grace, Christopher and Kira held
signs so everyone would know where to sit.
Megan and Blaze taught the school how to greet each other in Farsi and Armenian.
Julian and Cyrus presented a
wild weather report,
complete with predictions of
raining ipods in Farmington.

Christopher,
Skylar, Tom
Pete and
Alexandra
shared some
original jokes
and got the
whole room
laughing!
Grace and
Aila teach
everyone
Cross Crawl,
a Brain Gym
activity.
Blaze and Kira
taught the
entire school a
crazy dance
they
choreographed
themselves.
Leo and Iza did a little stand‐up routine before sharing inspiring stories
of students in each class showing compassion for one another:
Leo‐ Iza, isn’t it amazing how we all inspire each other to act
compassionately? I remember that time you helped me dig a hole
to the center of the earth. It made me feel warm all over.
Devi and John led the school in
celebrating January Birthdays by
singing Happy Birthday in Spanish.
Iza‐Yes Leo, and remember the time you helped me get my shoelace out of the tree?
Leo: You’re so inspiring . . .
Iza: No, you are . . .
Leo: No you are . . .
Iza: No you are . . .
Both: I guess we both are! It was hard to choose, but here are a few more
examples from each class that we would like to share!
Leo and Iza shared stories of students who have demonstrated compassion in
January and afterwards, all of the Stargazers gave a standing ovation saying,
“Thank you for inspiring us all!”
The Community Circle finished with the passing of the torch complete with
Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire and a little slow motion drama.

And the torch is handed to………………………………
The Seventh Grade will lead the next Community Circle!

Stargazers, you did a
wonderful job!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Congratulations
Zascha Fox!
Zascha Fox, SFSAS 8 th
grade student, recently
won 2 nd place in the Santa
Fe County Bee. Zascha will
now represent Santa Fe
County at the State
Spelling Bee in March.
National Geographic Geography Bee
In early January, Centaur, Badger and Middle School classes held Geographic Bees, using the nation wide National
Geographic Geography Bee questions.
Here are the top scoring winners from each class:
3rd Grade
1st Place: William Thornburg and Benji Stavrowsky
2nd Place: Michael Carthy
4th Grade
1st Place: Isaac Odai and Camille Bajema

2nd Place: Orion Curtis
5th Grade
1st Place: Indu Holdsworth
2nd Place: Sofia Bomse
3rd Place: Landon Tafoya
6th Grade
1st Place: Merit Willey
2nd Place: Isabel Fernandez
3rd Place: Noa Noa Laget Hudson
7th Grade
1st Place: Tilcara Webb
2nd Place: Coleman Piburn
3rd Place: Lauren Sarkissian and Brass Burapa
8th Grade
1st Place: Eugene Matias
2nd Place: Telo Hoy
3rd Place: Pilar Valenzuela
School Geography Bee
1st: Sofia Bomse'
2nd: Telo Hoy
3rd: Merit Willey
The top two winners from each class were then able to continue on to the school level bee. The National competition
rules limits the final bee to 10 students only. It was quite exciting to watch the students battling it out with challenging
questions about physical and cultural geography.
See if you can answer some of these challenging questions from the Bee (the answers are at the end of this update.)
1. The Volga, Europe’s longest river, empties into a body of water bordered on the north by Kazakhstan. Name
this body of water.
2. The International Red Cross has its headquarters in a city that shares its name with a large lake on the border
between Switzerland and France. Name this city.
3. Interaction of the solar wind with the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere produces what colorful
electromagnetic phenomenon?
4. Which major Japanese city is often grouped with Tokyo and Kawasaki as part of the country’s largest urban
and industrial area?
5. Africa’s highest peak is part of a national park in Tanzania. Name this mountain.
6. Tianjin, an important port city and manufacturing center, is on the Hai River. Tianjin is in what country?
7. What term describes a narrow strip of land that connects two larger landmasses?

Congratulations to our School Geo Bee Winners!
Sofia Bomse – 1 st Place
Telo Hoy- 2 nd Place
Merit Willey- 3 rd Place
Congratulations Jocelyn!
BABY MONITOR, the New Visions/New Mexico award-winning film of Jocelyn Jansons, our
moving images teacher, was just selected for the upcoming Taos Shortz Film Festival. The film will
screen as part of Program #6 at 12:30 PM on Sunday, March 6 at the Harwood Museum of Art in
Taos .For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit http://www.taosshortz.com/ . Please
note that the film is part of a program where parental
discretion is advised.
Jocelyn's second short film, LOBSTER will premiere at the Brown Filmmakers Showcase at
Anthology Film Archives in New York City on Thursday, February 10.
Congratulations to Ian Watson (7 th ) and Arryel Andraud (8 th )
Both Ian and Arryel were runner up photo contest winners in the Future Voices of New Mexico
monthly photography contest in conjunction with the National Geographic All Roads Future Voices
of NM Program. They were competing against hundreds of high school students!
Congratulations to Tatyana Stavrowsky
Tatyana received a scholarship award for her trip to France after writing an essay to the Intercultural
Student Services organization that coordinates our overseas trip to France.
NOW AVAILABLE FOR
PURCHASE!
SFSAS DVD of the
December Coffeehouse at the
Railyard Performance
Center. Only $5. Pick yours
up today!

Unicorn Update
Thank you to all the families in the Unicorn class for helping to create a school community through your participation in
our Family Tradition Expedition.
Our Museum Potluck will be next Friday, February 11 th , from 6:00‐7:30.
Not long ago, for a week during outside free-play time, the Unicorn class created a device that made pretend fire. They
used toys in the playground, one of which had a wheel that would spin. Wood was held on the spinning wheel, which
created “the fire.” Buckets filled with water were brought nearby to put out the fire if it got too big. Coincidentally, in the
fall, the middle school science classes had just learned the ancient ways to create fire by friction, just as people did
thousands of years ago.
The Unicorns are still learning how easy and fun it is to garden year-round. Their garden has survived the winter so far.
The garden was recently uncovered and the class was very excited to see their garden green and filled with carrots. They
excitedly gathered around the garden calling out to each other to come and see. They enjoyed grazing on the carrots that
they dug up. Mushegh said, “I like gardening in the winter because you can eat carrots!” Lilia said, “I like having a garden
in the winter, because I like to eat carrots.”

SAVE THIS DATE
Thursday, April 7th
SCHOOL PICTURE DAY!
All students will need to come to
school that morning for class and
individual photos for the
yearbook. Parents will also be
given the chance to purchase
pictures.
Dear Parents,
Our school is beginning to utilize the email communication tool, Constant Contact, to better keep in
touch with you and the community. They have a program that allows a business who is already a
paying Constant Contact customer to nominate our school at no additional cost to the business; this
would enable SFSAS to use their services for free.
If you are interested, please see the application and FAQs on their website and let us know if you
would like to nominate us.
Thank you!
SFSAS Office
We only have a few weeks left to sell
SFSAS Raffle Tickets. Please pick some
up today in the office if you think you
can possibly sell more. The raffle
drawing will be held at our next
coffeehouse on Feb, 18 th at the Railyard
Performance Center, 7:00-9:00 pm.

Thank You Notes!
Thank you Catherine and Garrett (parents of Elliott and William) for your generous donation of trees
for our campus! Thank you also for the wonderful playground structure! Our campus is becoming more
green everyday….
Thank you Liza and Pete (parents of Brisa) for the donation of a laptop for the Badger class.
Thank you Andy and Roxanne (parents of Sam) for your generous donation for our endowment fund!
Thank you to everyone who has donated to our scholarship and endowment funds.
Thank you to each parent who has made a hot lunch this year. We have almost reached our goal of
$30,000 for our overseas trips which ensures that every middle school student will travel overseas with
us regardless of their ability to pay. We are only $2,000 short of our goal!
Thank you to everyone who donated prizes to our SFSAS Raffle and thank you to everyone who is
selling raffle tickets. We have one month left to sell tickets!
Thank you Luke Stavrowsky for helping the Badger class with their New Mexico Geology maps.
Thank you to everyone who has brought in clothes for us to borrow for the play! We really appreciate it.
8 th Grade Mentorships
Our 8 th Grade students are beginning their mentorships this month and I would like to thank our kind
mentors who are volunteering their time to teach our students about the world of work.
Jake and Merari will be working with Alfonz Viszolay, the engineer, inventor and founder of VM
Technology Inc.
Alicia will be doing a mentorship in criminal law with Tom Clark (father of Isa and Tom Pete).
Jende and Emma will be doing a Sound Engineering and Recording mentorship with Frogville Recording
Studio, Bill Boaz's recording studio and Nicolle Jensen. Telo will also be doing a sound engineering
mentorship with a focus on Electronic music with science teacher Carlos Santisteven at the High
Mayhem Recording Studio.
Arryel will be learning about police work with Sargent Jason Wagner.
Ben and Wes will be studying digital photography and Adobe Photoshop with accomplished photographer
Winston Riley.
Tristan and James are learning about computer security, forensics and ethical hacking from Josh Dennis at
Wired Nation. (father of Chloe and Jameson)
August will be working at Dotfoil learning about computer repair.
Tatyana and Kalia will study acting with professional acting coach Janet Davidson.
Pilar will learn about business management from Alyson Gilman, manager of Agapao Coffee.
Eugene will be doing his mentorship with Amanda Pierce at LANB to learn about the world of banking.
Meenakshi is learning about therapeutic horseback riding with Carlos Caceres at Challenge New Mexico.
Zascha will be working with a master chef at Rancho Encantado.

BADGER CLASS UPDATE
The Badger Class really enjoyed presenting their Geology Expedition to the school community at
Wintercomes. It was a great conclusion to our studies. Thank you to everyone who came to visit
and asked such great questions.
Kai and his cinder cone volcano. Landon with his powerpoint. Serena and her box canyon.
Amaica and her earth power point. Lewis explaining his work. Merit & the features that make our earth.
Immediately after winter break, we began a mini preparation for the Geography Bee. We looked at
maps, talked about latitude and longitude, looked up geography vocabulary such as ‘isthmus’ and
learned about different biomes.
We are currently in the middle of our expedition on the Inuit people. We are writing stories and
conducting research on the cultural aspects of the Inuit.
In math, we have been studying Geometry. The students are learning how to find the volume of
various shapes such as cylinders and cones. We are currently going over conversions in the Metric
System and U.S. Standard.
Happy Chinese New Year!

Community News
Visit The Center for Contemporary Arts to see Mokha Laget’s (Noa Noa’s mom) beautiful art exhibit, “Crux.” This
exhibition will be at CCA until Feb. 13 and is not to be missed! The CCA says this about the
exhibit.
A new body of "architectonic paintings" by French-American artist Mokha Laget, Crux features the
artist's "Bildung" series, (16th century German concept of unfolding potentialities via spiritual and
philosophical approaches designed to liberate the programmed mind.) The work explores archetypal
symbols, such as the cross, and the conditioned responses they elicit.
As former assistant to Washington Color School artist Gene Davis, Laget laces her acrylic, pigment
and ink paintings with a keen sense of tonal juxtapostions. Painted on narrow planks of canvas
mounted on oak, the paintings interweave hard edge stripes with more lyrical abstraction.
Ms Laget has also been involved in theatre, as a designer, actor and director. She has worked as an independent curator, is
a published writer, translator and poet.
Ms Laget was featured in the Santa Fean Magazine's Top Talent - - June/July 2008 : "She's been showing in Europe, keeping
her art from the eyes of New Mexicans, which is a shame because her bridging of the long-standing categories of modern art
is intellectually engaging and visually exciting." Tim Rodgers, chief curator, New Mexico Museum of Art.
Wish List
Old Laptops
Adobe Photoshop Software
White or khaki pants and white button down shirts for Centaur boys and 7 th
grade boys.
Indian tops and skirts for Stargazers, Badger and 8 th grade girls.
Please bring in any clothes you have that we might borrow for the play this
week!

SFSAS Middle School working together on Challenge Day 2011

Geography Bee answers:
1. The Volga, Europe’s longest river, empties into a body of water bordered on the north by
Kazakhstan. Name this body of water.
The Caspian Sea
2. The International Red Cross has its headquarters in a city that shares its name with a large lake
on the border between Switzerland and France. Name this city.
Geneva
3. Interaction of the solar wind with the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere produces what
colorful electromagnetic phenomenon?
Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights
4. Which major Japanese city is often grouped with Tokyo and Kawasaki as part of the country’s
largest urban and industrial area?
Yokohama
5. Africa’s highest peak is part of a national park in Tanzania. Name this mountain.
Kilimanjaro
6. Tianjin, an important port city and manufacturing center, is on the Hai River. Tianjin is in what
country?
China
7. What term describes a narrow strip of land that connects two larger landmasses?
Isthmus