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THE HEADLINER |
| Heritage Christian High School | Friday, February 14, 2003 |
| We the Students
By Meghan Looyenga Have you ever wondered what government class would be like if you had to pass a test at the end of the semester…with no teacher to teach the subject to you? In the juniors’ 6th hour U.S. government class, Mrs. Looyenga gave us a very interesting assignment. Our purpose was to create a classroom government in order to accomplish our objective to pass the test. The eight of us split into two groups in order to find a way to learn everything that we had to know. Within our two groups, we wrote a constitution that included a preamble and a Bill of Rights. My group was made up of Joshua Poortinga, Timothy Vander Meulen, and Emily De Jong. We formed a democracy and created our own flag and symbols to signify our leadership of the government. Gold stars represented us, the leaders, while gray and white stars represented the four other students who did not rule in our government. I now realize that it would be really tough to run a successful government class without a teacher. Our class was given a great opportunity to figure this out for ourselves. |
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The
Sonic Boom! What is a sonic boom? It is the loud sound resulting from the incidence of a shock wave. What is a shock wave? It is the cone-shaped disturbance made by an object moving at supersonic speed through a fluid. It can be produced by overlapping spheres that form a cone. On February 1, 2003, the space ship Columbia was 15 minutes from landing when it exploded. The news stations reported that the sound many heard was a sonic boom. The sharp crack of a sonic boom could only have been heard when the cone-shaped pressure wave of the aircraft reached the listeners on the ground. When a whip is cracked, the sharp cracking noise that can be heard is like a sonic boom. When someone shoots a gun and the bullet flies past your ear, you might sometimes hear a snap. The noise you hear as it flies by is like a sonic boom. The reason you cannot
hear a sonic boom from a slower-than-sound aircraft is because
the sound waves reaching your ears are heard as one, continuous
tone, as the waves arrive one after another. Only when an aircraft
moves faster than sound do the waves overlap to reach the listener
in a single burst. The sudden increase in pressure has the same
effect as the sudden expansion of air produced by an explosion...a
sonic boom. |
Twain’s Humor Have you ever found yourself reading a very good story, anxiously awaiting the end to find out what is going to happen?! Mark Twain was very good at writing this type of suspenseful story. In American literature class, we have been learning about Mark Twain. After examining “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and “Life on the Mississippi,” Mr. Van Uffelen read us another Mark Twain short story called “A Medieval Romance.” This story has an interesting plot. The Lord of Klugenstein makes his daughter, Conrad, pretend as if she were a guy in order to become duke. As the story unfolds, the plot thickens and the suspense builds. Conrad is falsely accused and must make an almost impossible life or death decision! At this point in the story, Twain says, “The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will NOT be found in ths or any other publication, either now or at any future time. The truth is, I have got my hero (or heroine) into such a particularly close place that I do not see how I am ever going to get him (or her) out of it again, and therefore will wash my hands of the whole business…” To Mark Twain, this was probably funny. We were dying
to know the end and we never will! Throughout his work,
Twain uses many different forms of humor. He often makes
fun of himself, uses dialogue to make the story comical,
and sometimes leaves the reader hanging. |
