The 5 Minute Professor
By David Baek, IV Form
In Ms. Millet’s AP World History class, students were given an opportunity to showcase a topic to their class that they had chosen themselves to teach, for an exercise called the “5 Minute Professor.” Such topics were, “How is steel made?” and “The philosophy of Adam Smith (capitalism).” Given approximately a week to prepare, I scrambled the Internet and books in the library to search for any information on the philosophy of Adam Smith and its impact in world history. Using all my free time, I was able to understand Adam Smith’s ideas by reading some of the articles in his major work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth (more…)
Living My Life for Myself, Not Grades or My Parents
By Jazzy Randle, V Form
This past semester, I spent my time at the Mountain School in Vershire, Vermont. The Mountain School is a semester school on an organic farm that enrolls forty-five students in the both the fall and spring terms. When they presented at St. Mark’s my freshman year, I knew that this would be a place for me to be challenged and to learn more about myself. The mission statement of the Mountain School is “To cultivate a diverse and interdependent community (more…)
Genuine Thoughts After a Diversity Conference
By Payton Nugent, IV Form
I am white. I was born with pink, peach toned skin. It’s a strange experience when someone puts a variety of ethnicities in front of you and tells you to choose. Based on the color of my flesh and my seventy-five percent Irish heritage, I put myself in the white group. On December 5th through the 7th I attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in Washington, DC. I signed up to go because of my interest in learning more about leadership. I figured that this conference could give me insight on how to be a good leader. I didn’t even pay attention to the diversity part, and, in all honesty, I barely even knew what the word meant. I had no idea (more…)
June in Beijing
By Showjean Wu, Chinese Faculty
St. Mark’s recognizes that a global education is a critical component of a 21st century education, so this past June we launched our first trip to China to offer our students the invaluable opportunity to enrich themselves in China’s rich culture and language. For two weeks, three St. Mark’s students visited Beijing, China with me. V Formers Brittany Bing and Jasmine Randle, and IV Former Taylor John enjoyed a fascinating and informative stay in China’s capital, one of the most populous cities in the world. (more…)
Stand Up and Be Counted: The Butterfly Effect
By Jeniene Matthews, English Faculty
If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. ~Chaplain Peter Marshall
It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act. ~Dalai Lama
Can the flapping of a butterfly’s gossamer wings, which occur over a flowerbed in Texas, result in a snowstorm in Ireland? While I know it sounds like a ridiculous question, experts on the theory of chaos say yes, it can. This phenomenon even has a name: The Butterfly Effect. The flapping of the wings represents a small change in the initial state of the system (the weather), which causes a chain of events that can lead to a large-scale phenomenon (a snowstorm). This “Butterfly Effect” can also be analogized, I believe, to those little acts that we do that ripple out and make a difference whether we know it or not. It is the idea that everything is (more…)
3D Printing at St. Mark’s: The Desktop Factory
By Varun Shankar, VI Form
3D printing—it sounds like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie, where anyone is able to instantaneously create whatever object he or she desires, but in fact the technology is becoming more accessible today. No, we’re not able to instantly materialize anything we want yet, but 3D printing has grown from an obscure technology confined to expensive labs to a relatively cheap product for the layman. 3D printing starts with a 3D computer model of an object, made with any of the various available Computer Assisted Design (CAD) programs. The CAD file is then sent to the printer, which (more…)
Listen To My Pictures
By Meg Josephson, VI Form
I’m going to keep this brief, or else I’d be contradicting myself.
After my constructive travels at St. Mark’s during such experiential opportunities as summer study abroad and the choir tour, I have been faced with the same pressing questions from family and friends when I return: “How was it?” and “What was your favorite part?” Once I reflect on my trip, all my memories mesh together, and the richness of the experience is so difficult to put into words. So instead, I’ve turned to the power of pictures to (more…)
An Extension of the Arithmetic Derivative
By Seung Jae Lee V Form, Alex Padron VI Form, and Luya Wang VI Form
Instructor: Mr. Rick Umiker, Mathematics Faculty
Abstract: In this paper, we examine the product rule and the arithmetic derivative. We first find a closed-form formula for the arithmetic derivative over positive integers. We then extend the argument to negative numbers, rational numbers, power roots, and complex numbers. Throughout our research, we also use Mathematica graphics to help visualize the behavior of the arithmetic derivative over different domains and explore boundary conditions and intermediate lines. Finally, we discuss the continuity of arithmetic derivative and give a continuous form that satisfies the product rule. (more…)
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