Congratulations

All three of H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program's Middle School Music ensembles, band, orchestra, and chorus, received first place awards at the Music in the Parks Festival at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg on Friday, May 9th. These ensembles competed against ensembles of like kind, and their exemplary performance earned them high marks.Congratulations to these musicians and their teachers, Carl Holmquist, Risa Browder, and Bill Podolski.

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This weekend (May 11/12, 2013), the Arlington Arts Center and Baltimore-based artist Doug Retzler, in collaboration with Arlington Public Art, will begin building the skeleton of what will eventually become the Gourd Palace. The winning design for AAC’s Gourd Palace was inspired from a model made by HBW 6th grader Chloe Fugle. Retzler’s vision for the Gourd Palace is to create a living sculpture that illustrates our connection to nature and the important place it has in the lives of children and adults alike, particularly in an urban environment.Through community involvement, the Gourd Palace will serve as a common meeting place for both neighbors and visitors of this Arlington neighborhood. It will be a place to share stories, relax to music in the cool shade, and partake in workshops related to agriculture and environmental stewardship. Follow the progress at the Arlington Arts Center’s web site: http://www.arlingtonartscenter.org/blog/imagining-the-gourd-palace/

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6th Grade Science and Robotics teacher Kathy Molina was recently recognized by The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia for her work with LEGORobotics as part of our STE(A)M work at HBW. Kathy and the HBW LEGO Robotics program is featured in the Foundation's 2011-12 annual report on pages 8 & 9:
http://www.cfnova.org/images/CFNOVA_AR2012_Final.pdf

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HBW's 6th grade Earth Force students won 2nd place at the Caring For Our Watersheds competition April 24 for their inspired project "There's Something Fishy About the Frankenfish," or as it's commonly called the Northern Snakehead. For their project they researched this invasive species and it's fishing regulations, learned to cook and eat Snakehead from a chef in Annapolis, went fishing for Snakehead on the Potomac River and created a recipe book that they're going to hand out to local fishermen.Pictured are (L-R): Calla Ritland, Ben Gross, Alex Jones, Chloe Fugle and Molly George. Not pictured: Brooke Tanner, Raven Welch, Alex Keuerleber, Taylor Young, Grace Goldman, Clare McElhaney. Many thanks go to the parents of these students for their outstanding support. Students hope that parents who fish will try some of the recipes that can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/frankenfishrecipes

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The H-B Woodlawn Wind Ensemble under the direction of Carl Holmquist earned a Superior rating at the District XII Band Assessment on Friday, March 15. They performed beautifully for an esteemed panel of judges that included the directors of bands at Ithaca College and Temple University and the conductor of the US Army Field Band.

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At the March 16-17 Virginia is for Layouts Ultimate Frisbee tournament (the first of the year), the HBW Girls Varsity team finished undefeated, beating out teams from seven colleges and universities. HBW's team was the only high school team at this college-level tournament, sanctioned by USA Ultimate. Congratulations to the team and coach, Jacob Nuxoll!

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Olivia Taylor, 10th grader, has been accepted to the All-Virginia Orchestra, which will perform at Harrisonburg High School, Virginia, April 4-6 under the direction of Dr. Robert Cashin, James Madison University. Olivia is one of two Arlington students accepted to the orchestra and the only string player.

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Helen Westergren won a National Gold Medal for her piece, Paper Construction, (pictured below). She and teacher Faylinda Kodis will attend the Scholastic Arts awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York in May.

Brian McTyre won a National Silver for his photo, Crack of Light.

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Sophie Nicholakos and Nathaniel Stern have been accepted to the American Choral Directors Association National Honor Choir. Being accepted to sing at an ACDA conference is considered a great honor, both for a choir and for its conductor. About 300 singers are selected from around the country to sing in each national choir. With HBW's choir director, Bill Podolski, they will participate in the ACDA's conference in Dallas.

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7th grader Hannah Karlin received a First Place award at the Northern Regional Science & Engineering Fair in the Behavior and Social Science category.

8th grader Sophia Anderson received a First Place award at the Northern Regional Science & Engineering Fair in the Environmental category.

Biruktawit Assefa, 11th grader, won the Best in Fair Grand Prize at the Northern Regional Science & Engineering Fair for her project Mapping Phosphorylation Sites Necessary for Large T-antigen Stability through PCR-based Mutagenesis. Birdy will compete at the State Science Fair, April 5-6 at Virginia Military Institute and at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, AZ, May 12-17. At the Regional Fair, Birdy was also awarded 1st Place, Certificate of Merit & $100 from the Biophysical Society and 1st Place, Certificate of Excellence, $150, & a one-year subscription to Technology Review Magazine from the MIT Club of Washington, DC. Birdy presented her paper at the 2013 Junior Science & Humanities Symposium, held at Georgetown University in January.

Her abstract: In 2008, it was discovered that Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) is the main culprit behind 80% of metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma. Evidence has shown that MCV encodes for a protein called large T antigen which is essential for normal viral replication. Thus, large T antigen has been the subject of many studies. This project describes the phosphorylization sites and motifs necessary for large T antigen stability and function. DNA mapping was utilized to gain a relative idea of the locations of said phosphorylation sites. Next,mutagenesis was performed on four different motifs that contain the majority of the phosphorylation sites on the large T-antigen to isolate their functions. A truncation mutation was executed on three different sites on said oncoprotein to locate the motif necessary for large T-antigen stabilization. The resulting truncation were 516 base pairs, 390 base pairs, and 345 base pairs. These inserts were ligated into vectors 1038 and 2956. These were then expressed in kidney tumor cells and in turn, the protein expressions were analyzed through a western blot. Identifying the phosphorylation sites of large T antigen could lead to a better understanding of the viral protein and in turn a better way to combat it. Furthermore, protein stability is essential for protein expression.Instability of proteins can lead to degradation. Therefore, an improved idea of the phosphorylation sites and the motifs responsible for large T antigenstability and correct function could lead to locating a possible target for therapeutic drugs. Additionally, it will help pinpoint weaknesses in the cellular mechanism as whole.

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Ava Oaxaca was selected as one of nine finalists for the National Symphony Orchestra's Young Soloists' Competition. Ava plays oboe and saxophone.

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12th grader David Reich advanced to the Invitational Round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad. Of the 1,665 participants, only 200 made it to the invitational round. Of those 200 invited, David placed 107th.

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