November School Highlights

Academy for Allied Health & Biomedical Sciences

The Woodbridge Academy Interact Club collected more than 400 pounds of food for the annual St. James pantry Thanksgiving Food Drive.

Students, faculty and parents of the Woodbridge Academy were treated to an inspirational talk given by Joetta Clark Diggs, a four-time Olympian and Gold Medal winning sprinter. The message was about persevering during these challenging times and how to set yourself up for success.

Students in Mrs. Landsberg-Chang’s Statistics class put their new-found skills to the test by tracing statistical models of the COVID-19 and the recent election results. These real-world related problems bring home the importance of statistical modeling and its various applications.

Students in Mr. Turner’s 9^th grade English classes had to write Haikus and Tankas (five-line poems similar to Haikus), exchange them with classmates and then illustrate each other’s poems. Students then created a slide show and video of these amazing works of art.

Students in Ms. Wechsler’s in-person and online Spanish classes attended a virtual painting party hosted by the Mexican American Artist Collective El Comalito from Los Angeles. Students followed bilingual directives from the artists to complete various works of art in multiple mediums.

Academy for Science, Mathematics, & Engineering Technologies

The Computer Science Club's FRAT (Frame Rate Authentication Tool) was mentioned as part of an article on bringing digital forensics to pre-college students in Forensics Focus, a national forensics magazine.

Open House was held virtually this year. The stream provided an overview of Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics & Engineering Technologies hosted by Principal John Jeffries, Assistant Principal Amro Mosaad and Guidance Counselor Richard Fernandez. After a brief introduction to the stream, a prepared video highlighting all the school has to offer was shown. A question and answer session followed the video presentation.

The National Honor Society Induction Ceremony was held virtually this year. Inductees were: Shweta Iyer, Sanjana Vellanki, Lizzie Lomjaria, Sruthi Suresh, Sunny Halani, Niel Shah, Arjun Venat, Meha Patel, Abby Palaia, Nandini Goyal, Issac Jaramillo, Erin Tan, Aditya Pasupuletia, Aneesha Kodatia, Meha Patel, Anish Rane, Ayman Rouf, Evan Carmody, Purva Bommireddy and Garrett Seo.

Members of the Middlesex County Academy’s Interact team raised $1,505 for Breast Cancer Research by participating in a Drive Thru Breast Cancer Walk on the campus of Middlesex County College. Teams, Participants and survivors decorated their cars to show support.

Edison Academy Sophomores Isha Shrivastava and Bhavini Pandey participated virtually in the ADP Tech Challenge and came out winners. Teams of students created a mobile app for JANJ. The app’s focus was to enable JA High School Hero volunteers to record the number of hours they spend through JA’s leadership initiatives, helping to measure impact. Teams consisted of three to four students and each team was paired with a team of ADP mentors (2020 Alum Serena Zeng was a mentor). The app was built to solve the complex problem of tracking JA High School Heroes’ activities during their years leading to high school graduation, and to enable students to consistently track the number of hours dedicated to JA programs and initiatives.

Edison Academy Sophomore Aditya Dutt recently founded Mission: DICE (Design, Innovate, Create, Educate) where he conducts free virtual CAD modeling workshops for kids. He has conducted these classes for organizations such as local libraries, NAACP's Students Stepping into STEM program, MLK Intermediate School in Piscataway, and others. His organization received 2 grants in the past few months.

East Brunswick Campus

For the second year in a row, one of our student short films (Maria Martinez, class of 2020) have been selected to screen at the 2020 NJSBA Virtual Workshop Film Showcase. This Film Showcase will be seen by a potential viewing audience of over 8,000 attendees and be available for a full year to registrants.

National Technical Honor Society students volunteered in a Beach Sweep in Keyport. The Fall Beach Sweep is an annual event organized by Clean Ocean Action in which participants collect debris on the beach and record data which is used to advance federal, state, and local programs to reduce litter.

Mr. Louis Libitz, our Digital Film instructor, was instrumental in creating a Virtual 360 Open House using Google Tour Creator. This is currently being featured on our school website.

East Brunswick School of Career Development

Dr. Menell’s classes participated in a virtual reenactment over Zoom of World War 1 trench warfare and boot camp. Students worked in teams using breakout rooms to create the simulation.

Mr. Levine’s English and history classes worked on a fun activity about the Monolith that was found in Utah recently. His history class discussed this as a current event and his English class used it as a creative writing piece about why it was there, why it vanished so quickly and what it means.

Mr. Wiseman’s Building Service class has created a display in our auditorium foyer, including a television display that will be used to highlight events in school.

Piscataway Campus

Mr. Leahy's Building Trades student Reid Gies used skills learned in the shop to help achieve his Eagle Scout project. Reid and members of Boy Scout Troop 97 in Sayreville helped spruce up the playground at a local Presbyterian Church by cleaning out the area and spreading mulch. During shop class he designed and constructed a box to store the playground equipment for the daycare held in the church building. From start to finish Reid worked on his Eagle Scout project for two months.

Mr. Diemer’s Supermarket Careers students worked on a team building project using marshmallows and spaghetti to see who could construct the tallest structure. Students used the exercise to strengthen and build qualities such as communication, listening, planning, support, and organization.