LAPTOP CHECKLIST:

Functional Laptop?

Laptop Case?

Damage?

Charger?

Battery?

This week, Mr. Cavazos will lead a campus wide laptop check to gauge the student laptop needs. Following the winter break, students will begin receiving new laptops.  In order to prepare for this transition, this week students need to have their laptop, charger, and case with them at all times.

December 18th - 21st	Final Exam Week
Dec. 22nd - Jan. 5th	Winter Break
January 8th	First Day of Semester 2
January 12th	Report Cards Go Home
January 15th	Martin Luther King Day
February 21st	NHS Induction Ceremony

FRESHMAN FIELD TRIP:

L ast Thursday, December 7th, the Energy Institute's ninth graders went on a field trip to Galveston, where they spent the day learning about the professional world and oil rigs. The freshmen's first stop on their trip was at the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum, a retired jack-up drilling rig. At the museum, the freshmen participated in a scavenger hunt to find facts about drilling for oil. Afterwards, the students went to eat lunch at the Sea Star Base Galveston, a sailing venue. There, they learned about knots (one nautical mile per hour), and about sailing and related scholarships from a champion sailor. Despite the wet and frigid weather, Energy's freshmen had a great, educational day in Galveston.

ENERGY @ BSEE

On December 6th and 7th, juniors from both cohorts, Atomic 5 and Bazinga Squad, went to the George R. Brown Convention Center for the BSEE Clean Gulf Conference & Exhibition.  This event delivers solutions for preventing oil and hazardous material spills and suggests how to prepare and respond to such incidents. The conference brings together companies and organizations that partake in response operations so they may build relationships with each other and identify the most successful response practices. 

N ot only did Energy students get a chance to network with professionals from the energy industry, but they also had the opportunity to contribute their ideas for oil spill response. During the exhibition portion, juniors from Atomic 5 presented the designs they created to clean up oil spills while juniors from the Bazinga Squad presented their water filtration devices used to filter out oil from water to drink. Students were able to get both an insight into the energy business and participate in it.

On Saturday, December 9, the Architecture Center of Houston hosted the 9th annual gingerbread build-off at City Hall's Hermann Square. The sophomores that won Energy Institute's build-off represented the school at the event. They decided to build a future Mars colony using 100% edible materials. The construction phase was separated into four parts: a city, a farmland, a mine, and a surrounding mountain. The students began construction with the mountain and the surface of Mars, using fondant and rice krispies. They used paprika, cinnamon, ginger, and coffee to create the planet's reddish surface. During the second part of construction, the students used gingerbread to build the city's structures and decorated them with a variety of icing and candy. For the final two phases of construction, they used Kit Kats to build a road leading into the colony and fondant and food coloring to create crops.

On Tuesday, December 5, the freshmen Lightning Volts cohort held an exhibition over their first three PBL projects. For the first nine weeks, the students completed the Bayou Bins project, in which they had to create a device that could be used to clean up the waters of Houston's bayous. During the second nine weeks, they were able to complete two more PBL projects: in Biology and Engineering, they designed wearable art inspired by biological structures in their "Cellular Jewelry" project; in World Geography and English, they investigated the mindset of world leaders in their "Persuasive Podcasts". On the night of the exhibition, visitors were able to read about and purchase the Cellular Jewelry pieces. Additionally, guests listened to the podcasts that the students recorded from the point of view of different world leaders. Finally, the freshmen students hosted a design challenge for the visitors to participate in. As part of the challenge, participants were tasked with creating their very own Bayou Bins in under three minutes and faced off to see who could collect the most trash with their creation. At the end of the evening, students and parents met in the cafeteria to receive information about what next semester will entail for the Lightning Volts cohort. Above all, the exhibition was a success, and Energy is very proud of the Lightning Volts!

For their second cohort PBL, the Bazinga Squad juniors were tasked this week to build open photobioreactors that would cultivate and harvest algae. Each project group in one class is responsible for a different task force, including architects, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, environmental engineers, the management team, or the research and development team. The students' driving question to guide their project was: How do we remediate the Gulf of Mexico? Students are attempting to solve eutrophication, the abundance of nutrients in water brought by the pollutants of fertilizer, and the dead zone, an area of low oxygen concentration, present in the Gulf of Mexico. Simulating conditions in the Gulf, a small inflatable pool serves as a body of water while added fertilizer is used as a food source to grow the algae. Additionally, each open photobioreactor design must consist of a moving part and a system that relies on sunlight as its only light source. Each week, the water's nitrogen and phosphate levels will be tested to see the progression of water quality. Currently, there is a competition among the classes to see who can collect the most algae while maintaining high-quality water. The work doesn't stop there, however, as the algae grown will be used in a future project to produce biodiesel.  We can't wait to see what the students will discover during this project!

1st Place: UFS	2nd Place: Grade +	3rd Place: Mold Scolders
Candido Rodriguez Luis Alvarez Isaiah Diaz David Salvador Lucero Zamarripa	Jose Saravia Christian Vicencio	Trisha Litong Mark Cabrera Hadiya Culbreath Damien Young

On Thursday, December 7, the senior class held the first half of their engineering and  design competition. Unlike the freshmen, sophomore and junior classes, our seniors do not have cohorts. Instead, the entire senior class is split into groups of four to five in a group and given the driving question of "How do we, as engineers, design the optimal solution to a justified problem?" Each group presented their project ideas to parents and judges for feedback and constructive criticism to improve and solidate their innovation. A gift certificate will be given to the group with the most quality presentation and innovative thinking through design. This competition is the first step to assist each group in creating a complete product through their design process in the spring semester. 

Each group created their own product through any existing invention to innovate, ranging in various topics. One group of five students - Austin Schneider, Christian Kelly, Jacob Davis, Jackson Whitley, and Isaac Whitley - designed an off the grid power supply using batteries and solar panels. The solar panels power a large battery that powers homes and can continue for a range of ten months out of the year before changing batteries. 

Another group of 4 students - Hadiya Culbreath, Mark Cabrera, Damien Young and Trisha Litong - designed a mold detecting device that intakes mold samples and placed the contaminates on a slide for the consumer to view through a provided magnifier attached to your mobile device camera. Overall, parents, teachers, and judges were impressed with the projects, and Energy is very proud of their success. 

Most schools have a deadline on or before January 1st, which is less than a month away. By now, you should have submitted your Dean Recommendation Packet to your dean so they can ensure your information on Naviance matches that on your applications. Be sure to request letters of recommendation at least two weeks in advance. Also, be sure to complete your FAFSA application, in order for colleges to determine your financial aid package. Finally, make sure you are completing scholarship applications and meeting scholarship application deadlines. It is imperative that you stay on top of your college game so that you are prepared for your future post-graduation.

Dr. Juan Andrade Scholarship for Young Hispanic Leaders	DECA Scholarships	Travel Education Scholarship
Deadline:  December 31, 2017 Amount: $1,000	Deadline: January 19-18, 2018	Deadline: January 31, 2018 Amount: $1,000