Graduation 2024
We always enjoy having our alumni come back to celebrate graduation with us. And what a big turnout!
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Abi Spends a Semester at The Island School
Abi spent her spring semester immersed in studies at The Island School in Cape Eleuthera, The Bahamas. She learned ecology, history, and culture through direct experience in the ecosystems and communities surrounding her.
Spring 2024 Gristle Butter Issue #13
Click here to read Gristle Butter #13, featuring Zora D, Marlee C, Brittney M, Daniel A, Hazel W, Rowan S, Maddox B, Wilson K, Jay S (‘22), Vanessa B, Isha H, Tristan S, Avery M, Ebelin R, and Miles C …along with contributions from the Spanish III/IV class and other anonymous community members!
This is the largest Gristle Butter publication to date, containing over 30 submissions!
Gross Anatomy
Our Anatomy class had a hands-on experience at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. We are so grateful to Mr. David Lugar and Dr. Matt Joy for providing this amazing opportunity to our Anatomy students to visit the cadaver lab.
Roanoke City Parks and Recreation 2024
For our third and final Community Service Day of the school year, Jonathan arranged a very successful partnership with Roanoke Parks & Recreation.
Some of our students stained fences on the Roanoke River Greenway. Others worked at Smith Park re-mulching the playground, breaking up soil in the greenway planters, and seeing the trout truck restock the Roanoke River with fish. They also enjoyed a bonus talk from the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources on trout restocking. Another group removed 3,920 pounds of invasive species from the Roanoke River Greenway! And finally, our last group of students helped Community School at the Strawberry Festival.
It was a truly successful day, and a wonderful way to begin wrapping up the year.
Slingshots
We just love breaking out the giant slingshot on a lovely spring day. Our Physics students varied angles and distances as they conducted their velocity experiments.
Sarah Epstein’s (’20) Senior Research
Sarah Epstein (’20) presented her Independent Study project entitled “Pesticides in the Atmosphere: The Heterogeneous Ozonolysis of Triticonazole” at The College of Wooster’s Senior Research Symposium. Her presentation is the manifestation of countless hours of research, collaboration, and creative expression.
Pesticides are an emerging environmental concern as they are widely used across the globe to help farmers eradicate pests, weeds, and other unwanted organisms that may harm their crops. This present study examined the heterogeneous ozonolysis of triticonazole, a broad-spectrum fungicide, by conducting the ozonolysis degradation and monitoring the reaction using attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, determining the reaction kinetics and rate constants through RStudio analysis, and characterizing the degradation products using liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS). The second order rate constant appeared dependent on ozone concentration; k2 = (8 ± 1) x 10-17 cm3 ⋅ molecule-1 ⋅ s-1 at ~ 400 ppb of ozone, and k2 = (3.54 ± 0.06) x 10-17 cm3 ⋅ molecule-1 ⋅ s-1 at ~850 ppb of ozone which indicated that the reaction mechanism and pathway potentially changed when exposed to low versus high ozone concentration. The characteristic lifetime of triticonazole was determined to persist in the atmosphere due to heterogeneous ozonolysis for 6.9 – 9.5 hours under pristine atmospheric conditions, and for 41-57 min under polluted atmospheric conditions, which compared to other triazole fungicides was not long at all. Using reverse phase chromatography, positive mode LC-QTOF-MS, and analyzing the data with Qualitative Analysis, 20 potential products were found by their retention time, m/z value, and proposed chemical formula (if applicable). However, in silico mass spectral analysis methods must be performed to generate molecular structures and formulas of the degradation products to understand the atmospheric implications of the heterogeneous ozonolysis of triticonazole.
Spring 2024 Gristle Butter Issue #12
Click here to read Gristle Butter #12, featuring Zora D, Novie H, Daniel A, and Maddox B.
“Teddy Orloff and the Three Onions: A Cooking Spiel” by Les Epstein
Les Epstein’s newest book, “Teddy Orloff and the Three Onions: A Cooking Spiel“, is the third in his book set published by Gnashing Teeth. The other two in the series are Lorenzo by the Ghost Light, and Sleep Cinematic: A Golem’s Quartet.
Teddy Orloff is a baker, whose home and community have been rocked by scarlet fever. His children are stricken and the home under quarantine. As a baker he cannot stay with his family yet he finds a way to slip in at night. Teddy’s wife sends him on a mission to find a perfect onion to make latkes-a certain cure for the fever. Forging into an ice storm, Teddy’s quest grows weird. It is the perfect onion, though, he must acquire, whether it exists or not.
Teddy Orloff is a baker, whose home and community have been rocked by scarlet fever. His children are stricken and the home under quarantine. As a baker he cannot stay with his family yet he finds a way to slip in at night. Teddy’s wife sends him on a mission to find a perfect onion to make latkes-a certain cure for the fever. Forging into an ice storm, Teddy’s quest grows weird. It is the perfect onion, though, he must acquire, whether it exists or not.Les Epstein is a poet, playwright, opera librettist and educator. His work has appeared in journals in the United States, Philippines, India and the U.K., including Slant, The Bacopa Review, Mojave River Review, Clinch Mountain Review, and Jelly Bucket as well as the anthologies Heat the Grease (Gnashing Teeth Publishing) and Pain & Renewal (Vita Brevis Press). His work was honored by the Writers Guild of Gainesville (FL) in 2021 and has been featured in the podcast, “Sunflower Sutras,” broadcast out of Washburn University. His chapbook, “Kip Divided,” appeared from Finishing Line Press in 20222. As a playwright, his work has been staged by such theaters as the Belfast Maskers (Maine), Greenbrier Valley Theater (WV), Stone’s Throw Dinner Theater (Missouri) and the Roy Arias Studio (New York). He contributed libretti for two operas, Barefoot (1997 premiere) and Miss Lucy (2011 premiere). Cyberwit released a collection of his short plays and libretti (Seven) in 2018. Epstein’s bi-lingual collaboration with Claudia de Franko, Llorona of the River is available through Silver Birchington Plays. He received undergraduate degrees in Theater Performance and English from Otterbein College, and MA in English from Miami (Ohio) University and continued with studies in Literature at New York University and in Theater Education at The Ohio State University. He completed his teacher training at Mary Baldwin College. In addition to work with theater, opera and ballet companies from North Carolina to New York City, he spent ten seasons as Education Director and Production Coordinator for Opera/Columbus and another seven as Executive Director for the Children’s Theater of Winston-Salem before settling in as a teacher with Community High School for which he has staged more than forty productions.
Jen’s Spring Choral Concert
Jen Sosnowski teaches science by day and sings by night. Jen is a member of The Voices of Appalachia and they performed in a joint venture with the Roanoke College Choir to present “Life’s Liturgies”
Click here to listen to the concert performed at the Salem Presbyterian Church.