Mr. Kesler, Mr. Brennan

The Makerbot Replicator is a computerized glue gun that prints by building up thin beads of hot glue into solid objects! CAD software such as the freeware programs Sketchup and OpenSCAD are used to build the 3D models. In this course, you’ll learn to use several different design programs to model and print all sorts of objects. If you can imagine it, you can (eventually) build it! You might design a piece to replace the broken arm of your prized Bionicle, or you might print out some replacement buttons for your shirts. If you’re interested in computers, sculpture or architecture, physics or engineering, mathematics, or if you just love watching the Makerbot “go,” this course is for you!  See for yourself what the Makerbot can do (on YouTube). Also visit thingiverse.com for an idea of what is possible with this amazing device.

Final Assessments/Products: individual project, component of group project

Short title (transcript): 3-D Printing and Technical Drawing

Ms. Ciampaglio, Ms. Molina

This course will focus on how several molecules have radically changed the course of history. For example, the search for spices (pepper, nutmeg, cloves) led to the “Age of Discovery” where European explorers ventured throughout the world in a quest for these substances. Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) prevented scurvy and allowed long distance sea voyages. The impact of each molecule (or class of molecules) will be examined from a historical viewpoint. Laboratory experiments have been selected for each of these molecules. It is anticipated that you will develop an appreciation of the role that chemistry has played in history and how chemistry plays a dramatic role in our society. Polymers (fabrics, plastics), pain medication (aspirin), antibiotics (penicillin), dyed fabrics, explosives, perfumes, and energy conversion (batteries) are a few topics that will be explored theoretically and experimentally. This course will build on the concepts from the traditional chemistry course but the emphasis will be on history and real world applications and less on theoretical concepts and problem solving.

Final Assessments/Products: presentation on a molecule and its associated scientists and impact on history

Short title (transcript): Breakthroughs in Modern Chemistry

Ms. Ferentinos, Dr. DelRusso

"A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are." Ara Parasheghian

Are you devoted to a personal pursuit of outstanding achievement in athletics and other leadership positions? Would you like to gain the skills to knowledgeably inspire and pass on your passion to your peers and future generations? If so, “Coaching 101: the X’s and O’s and beyond” is for you.

During the course you will uncover what makes a good coach through personal reflection, readings, guest speakers, attending a pro practice, and most importantly, practical application. As a group, you will create a new sport, and determine the objectives and rules. Each afternoon, as coaching pairs, you will decide the most important skills to coach, and then plan and run a practice. The rest of your classmates will be your team. Homework will include video analysis of the practice to provide feedback to your “coaches.” On the final day, a champion coaching pair will be crowned through a competition that will determine who has combined knowledge, execution, and leadership most successfully. It’s certain to be nine days of activity, creativity, excitement, and competition.

Final Assessments/Products: Video production for skills instruction, Practice Plan and execution, Final class-wide competition, game-day coaching, Formulation of a personal leadership/coaching philosophy that can be applied not only to sport but also to work, family, and life.

Short title (transcript): Leadership through Coaching

Dr. Fall, Ms. Pascal

This course is designed to train students for activism on behalf of human rights, civil rights and civil liberties, at a time when many fundamental rights are threatened at home and abroad.  We will explore issues relating to these rights, including their historical context, social movements fighting for these rights, laws, and current and historical threats.  We will also investigate the commonality and interdependence of different types of oppression, as well as what rights are essential in a democracy. In addition, we will meet with people advocating for rights and take a field trip to further our understanding and training.  As part of the class, students will take on an issue of their choice (individually or in small groups), and undertake a project to advance this issue.  Some issues for exploration include but are not limited to:  women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, health care, education, mass incarceration, equal opportunity, immigration, sex trafficking, child slavery, genocide, torture, hunger and poverty, religious toleration, fight for democracy and minority rights, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.  Student projects can include undertaking an action such as: making a short documentary, writing pamphlets and/or editorials, organizing a protest or march, doing a case study, composing a short play, interviewing victims or survivors, hosting an event to support an organization, cause or issue, or undertake another approved activity. 

Final Assessments/Products: Human Rights Fair

Short title (transcript): Human Rights and Activism

Mr. Worrell, Mr. Gold

Develop your personal point of view as you take multiple field trips to different locations like the High Line, Chinatown NYC, Sandy Hook, Liberty State Park and locations around school. Working with Canon Rebel DSLR cameras and utilizing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software in the Digital Media Lab, you will gain real hands-on experience with location-specific photography. The multiple locations serve as practice on shoots, and back at school, you’ll experiment with photo-editing software and apps. Additional time will be spent planning a group exhibition and preparing your photos for print and slide show display. While this June Term course is an introduction to on-location digital photography, students with prior photography experience are encouraged to work at their own level of expertise.

Final Assessments/Products: portfolio of photographs and a class exhibit

Short title (transcript): Digital Photography — On Location

Mr. Yow, Ms. Ortega

Documentary films ask us to look at the world with empathy, insight, and an appreciation for the stories that are all around us. In this class, you'll learn and practice all the phases of film production in order to create your own short documentaries. We will lead you through all the steps of a professional film shoot, from preproduction to editing, and teach you both the technical skills and the artistic perspective you'll need to craft evocative films. In addition, you'll work with Virtual Reality and 360 degree cameras - relatively new technology - to create immersive documentaries that push your creativity as storytellers. The course will conclude with a public screening of your work. 

Final Assessments/Products: A short documentary produced in a small group

Short title (transcript): Documentary Filmmaking

Mr. Rollenhagen, Ms. Bond

This course will develop into student-directed media research projects in arts, music, literature, journalism and politics by focusing on America in an era that undoubtedly shaped your grandparents’ and maybe even your parents’ politics and artistic or scholarly interests. Following an early 20th Century primer, we will begin focusing with Malcolm X’s assassination (February 21, 1965) and conclude with President Reagan’s Inauguration (January 20, 1981). We will investigate how one genre or field responds to another as events unfold: What were journalistic responses to the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village? What did pop music or politicians have to say about the rebellions in Newark and Detroit? Did the moon landing affect music, dance or painting? In the end we will look at the 1980 Presidential Campaign for its influence (or lack of it) on our current state of American affairs. A field trip to sites of the Newark rebellions, the Stonewall Uprising, and the Columbia students’ protests will be scheduled half way through our work.

Final Assessments/Products: multi-media collage

Short title (transcript): American Dream Deferred, 1965-1981

Ms. Del Russo, Ms. Pascal, Ms. Rubin-Schottland

You are what you eat! Nowhere is this truer than in America. We are “the breadbasket of the world,” and we are a nation of immigrants whose culinary cultures have shaped and enriched the American palette. We are also a nation struggling with the paradox of plenty. In this course, you will explore the foods in the American culinary repertoire and the aspects and origins of our diet. You will engage in hands-on tasting and cooking experiences, as well as learn from experts in the field. With visits to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, an urban organic farm in Newark, and an industrial Portuguese bakery in the Ironbound, you will explore places important to the history and future of the American diet. You will also study and research the food traditions of you own culinary heritage. Nightly homework will include maintaining a food journal and completing reading, writing, and cooking assignments.

Final Assessments/Products: food journal, two essays, preparation of a final meal, and a recipe book

Short title (transcript): Food and the American Identity

Ms. Shapiro Cooper, Margery Leit ‘20

Wanted: Fourteen supremely talented and absolutely fearless students willing to navigate the choppy waters of literary criticism and theatrical production. Applicants should possess excellent communication skills, a willingness to both lead and follow, and a strong work ethic. During the nine-day voyage, the class will read, analyze, write, rewrite, and perform one-act plays. The culminating experience will be the production of several one-act plays; these student-written plays will be selected, cast, and developed by the fourteen members of the class. All students will receive the opportunity to work onstage and backstage as part of this culminating experience. In preparation for the performance, students will be exposed to the basics of technical theatre and playwriting, while drawing on the lessons learned during our literary analysis. Life preservers will be provided on request.

Final Assessments/Products: public performance of student-written one-act plays

Short title (transcript): From Page to Stage: The One-Act Play

Dr. Vega, Ms. Pasquale

In 1906, W. K. Kellogg began mass marketing a flaked cereal with added sugar he called Corn Flakes. People adored it, and processed food was born. Today, we have hundreds of packaged foods in the grocery store that we all know and love, but what are these foods actually doing to us? This course will be an intensive study of the biological and nutritional aspect of the food we eat.

The themes of this course are (1) Nutrition and (2) The Food Revolution. In the first theme, we’ll look at the evolution of humans and nutrition to better understand what nutrients we need. We’ll study processed food, why it was created, and what problems have arisen from it. We will work with NA’s fitness coach in the Fitness Center and outside and we will learn how to track what we consume to better fuel our bodies for athletics. In the second theme, we will tour and shop at some local grocery stores. We will use the food we purchase to create a meal as part of the cumulative project. We will take a cooking class with a local chef and investigate current food trends. Above all, we will fully engage with the food that surrounds us every day and decide what we each think the future of food should be.

Students with food allergies: Please be aware that many lessons and experiences will involve common allergens such as dairy, eggs, wheat, soybeans, tree nuts, coconut, peanuts, and wheat, among others. We cannot guarantee an allergy-free space.

Final Assessments/Products: Food journal; Project on unrecognizable ingredients; Final Presentation on “Counter Revolution” with menus following a specific food trend; Cooking a side dish.

Short title (transcript): Nutrition and Food Science

Dr. Thayer, Mr. Lockhart-Gilroy

In this course, you will have an opportunity to integrate your interest in two subjects that are not normally connected. We will begin with a simple question: what makes noise become music? We then move on to explore some basic music notation and musical concepts, and you will build a simple musical instrument called a duochord to mathematically investigate scales and the fundamental idea of temperament. You will learn about a fundamental mathematical idea, that of permutations, and use this to compose a short piece of music in a “12-tone” style, first used by the composer Arnold Schoenberg. Finally, you will investigate the nature of musical sounds themselves, by exploring timbres of different instruments using a software program called Audacity. At least one field trip, to the Martin Guitar Factory in Nazareth, PA is planned

Prerequisite: Algebra 2/Trig (no prior formal musical experience or training necessary)

Final Assessments/Products: an original composition and construction of duochord instrument

Short title (transcript): Mathematics and Music

(Course logo created by Mia Smith '15)

Mr. Kanarek

In this course, we will explore new ways of thinking about leadership and collaboration and provide practical skills to apply to our leadership roles and teamwork in the community. Every day, students at Newark Academy work in teams in athletics, clubs, arts endeavors, and the classroom. In corporate, nonprofit, and academic settings, too, daily work involves leading collaboratively in fluid teams where expertise, communication, and vision are often just as important as authority. Put another way, giving someone a leadership position does not make that person a leader! This course starts with the premise that classic lessons of leadership are important but no longer sufficient for success in today's fast-paced, fast-changing, and interconnected world.  We will use short readings, fiction, TED Talks, and leadership testimonials to explore the skills and ideas that today's leaders need.

Team projects, case studies, leadership games, and role-playing activities will help us learn on the job.  Students in this course will gain greater self-awareness, sharpen their communication skills, increase their awareness of social justice issues and ethical leadership, and learn to leverage their strengths.  Finally, we will form teams to develop solutions to real-world problems identified by the class. A field trip to the High Line in Manhattan will provide a model for this process. We will examine how that project emerged from local needs and desires and ask how leaders of the project collaborated to create the final product. Did it accomplish its mission? Through this combination of real-world lessons and leadership practice, we will each develop our own leadership style, deepen our understanding of how leadership can improve our communities and increase social justice, and ultimately positively impact our school and home communities.

Final Assessments/Products: group project and presentation proposing a solution to a difficult adaptive challenge

Short title (transcript): Leadership in the 21st Century

Ms. Emelianoff

Duke Ellington has been often quoted, “There are only two types of music, good and bad.” Through an exploration of the elements common to all good music—melody, harmony, rhythm, form, color, and texture—examples from master composers past and present will be analyzed, compared, and emulated, with the goal of creating short, coherent, readable and playable compositions. Guest composers will share their expertise of bringing musical ideas to life. A field trip to NJPAC is planned. Homework will include listening, analyzing, and composing. Assessment will be based on creativity, coherence of ideas, and application of techniques learned in the course.

Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of reading notation of notes and rhythms of standard music

Final Assessments/Products: concert featuring pieces composed by class members

Short title (transcript): Musical Composition as Self-Expression

Mr. Beckman, Ms. Powell

In this course, we will explore the genre of nature writing through literary study and outdoor activity.   By reading short stories, poems, and essays by a range of authors, we will analyze and understand what elements contribute to a strong piece of nature writing.  We will also discuss the influence of place and setting on writers, as well as the importance of learning from and in the natural world.  With these literary reflections in mind, we will spend a significant amount of time outdoors, engaging with the natural world through both peaceful observation and physical interactions on a daily basis.  You will keep a journal throughout the course and will have many opportunities to write both freely and in response to a variety of prompts.  We will spend time in three distinctly different natural places—NA’s nature trail, the Jockey Hollow historical park, and the beach at Sandy Hook—writing about the effects of nature on our own sense of place and self.  These journals will serve as source material for the final product of the class: two polished pieces of nature writing.  Significant class time will be dedicated to the writing, revising, and editing of these pieces. Students must be able to complete a modest hike.

Final Assessments/Products: two polished pieces of nature writing

Short title (transcript): Nature Writing

Dr. DeSanta, Ms. Gabb

This course invites you to be a guest staffer for Five Quarterly's second annual e-chapbook contest. You and your fellow staffers will select one winner each in the categories of Fiction and Poetry from a pool of finalists (which will have been reviewed by the advisors and 5Q staff). The course will simulate a publishing house and its various departments: Editorial, Marketing, and Arts. Each day of the course will be modeled on a real day in the life of a publishing imprint and will be broken up into "cubicle time" in which you will work individually, "department meetings" in which you will convene with your fellow editors/marketers/arts colleagues, and "all staff" meetings in which the departments come together. The course will encourage real workplace skills such as creativity and an independent work ethic, as well as the ability to communicate, compromise, and work as a team. Homework will consist of reading and re-reading manuscripts, keeping a book of manuscript notes, and continuing research initiated during the day. We welcome students from all grades. We strongly encourage students who are skilled in InDesign and/or Photoshop and artists.

Final Assessments/Products: Publication of one Fiction and one Poetry E-Chapbook to be launched in conjunction with fivequarterly.org.

Short title (transcript): Book Publishing Bootcamp                               

Mr. Crosby, Ms. Tupajic

Vertebrates are the undisputed rulers of the animal kingdom and, with that, the world. This course will trace the development of the vertebrate groups through discussions about, dissections of, and encounters with these amazing groups of animals. Discussions will center around the evolutionary development of the anatomical systems while the dissections will allow you to see their place and relationship to the organism as a whole. In the past, dissections included lamprey, dogfish shark, perch, bullfrog, turtle, pigeon, and rat. We will be able to see some of these animals firsthand on the field trip. This course appeals to those who don’t mind getting a little messy, enjoy the outdoors, and are not faint of heart.

Final assessments/Products: Digital Portfolio

Short title (transcript): Vertebrate Biology

Ms. Serrano, Mr. Romay

Do or Do not. There is no try. Engage you will with concepts and structures that have brought characters to life for centuries. This journey offers skills and knowledge in three categories: Mythology, creative writing, and Jedi training. Master characterization, dialogue, point-of-view, dragon training, and the development of plot and setting. By the end of your Padawan experience, you will have produced a literary master work and will have faced and conquered fears. Trust your feelings. Enroll you must!

Final Assessments/Products: a personal monomyth & some obstacles along your Hero's path

Short title (transcript): Creative Writing with Mythology

Ms. Ma, Ms. Zhao

Papermaking is one of the great ancient inventions of China. Aside from the basic use of paper as a medium for writing, what other uses and possibilities can paper provide for us? In terms of industry, architecture, and technological progress, what can paper teach us and be used for? Let us find out together in this course! Together, we will learn the history and social studies of papermaking around the world. You will produce a research paper that compares a foreign country to America in terms of their recycling policies. And you will learn a variety of paper art using recycled paper. You will learn to make your own paper as well as other paper-related products such as: Japanese origami, Iris Folding, paper weaving, paper lamps, modern paper cutting, and 3D paper engraving. In this way, you will experience the different things that paper can do.

Final Assessments/Products: construction of original piece of wearable paper clothing or design usable cardboard furniture; and participation in a Morning Meeting presentation

Short title (transcript): Paper Art and Design

Ms. Celente

Tired of racing through your lab period to get everything completed and cleaned up in 90 minutes? Frustrated by your inability to delve deeper into scientific areas of interest given the limitations of time and space? Your parent’s won’t let you do science experiments in your house? Have you ever just wondered, what if? If the answer to these questions is yes, this course is designed for you. During this June Term course you will have the opportunity to choose an area of interest, design an experiment to answer your question, gather original data, analyze your data using statistical tests and present your findings to the class. We will also take a field trip to see some practical applications of scientific research.

Note: Once enrolled, you will be contacted by the instructor before June Term begins to discuss ideas and order necessary materials for your experiment.

Final Product/Assessment: Students will design and maintain a digital laboratory notebook to document all steps of their research project and develop an oral presentation of their findings to be shared with the class.

Short title (transcript): Scientific Research and Design

Ms. Williams, Ms. Ronan

You want to be an entrepreneur? You want your work to have meaning, a social impact? Become a social entrepreneur. This course is an in-depth study of what it means and what it takes be a successful social entrepreneur. We will take a look at the history of social entrepreneurship, its exponential growth, and where it is going. We will visit social entrepreneurships in NYC and have the opportunity to interview social entrepreneurs. Finally, we will come up with at least two viable ideas for a social enterprise and create business and marketing plans which will be presented to a larger group in the school community. Other members of our community will then vote on which entrepreneurship is the most like to succeed, Shark Tank style.

Final Assessments/Products: Social business competition

Short title (transcript): Social Entrepreneurship

Ms. Addison, Ms. Fischer

Why SHOULD we do community service? Why is the United States marked by such a large disparity in wealth and opportunity? What is the difference between “helping” and “serving”?  How is it possible that the housing projects and soup kitchens of Newark and the Oranges are less than ten miles from the beautiful campus of NA? These questions and others will be addressed in an interdisciplinary seminar-style format that explores issues around social justice, poverty, and the importance of service for American society in the twenty-first century.  In the course, you will focus your study around history, sociology, philosophy, and economics of poverty in three main areas: hunger, homelessness, and public education. You will extend your learning beyond the classroom by participating in community service learning experiences over the course of June Term, which will correspond to the issues studied in class, specifically including a Midnight Run homeless relief mission in either Newark or New York City (see midnightrun.org) and a chance to tutor and meet public elementary school students in Newark. You will learn to debrief, contextualize, reflect upon, and apply the importance of community service to other aspects of your lives. Note: Participants will not receive credit toward the Newark Academy community service requirement for service performed in this course.  Instead, those enrolled can expect academic credit and enriching experiences of serving those less fortunate and building community within the classroom.

Final Assessments/Products: final reflection project

Short title (transcript): Sociology and Social Justice

Mr. Bitler

This course will provide you with a two-week experiential and brain-stretching immersion into the exciting techno world of modern science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).  The goals of the course will be to engage and excite you with regard to STEM subjects, to get you to think out-of-the-box, to familiarize you with many current and near future complex technologies, to engage you in building and designing solutions to technological problems, to strengthen your analytical thinking skills, and to bolster your math abilities and broad science knowledge. You will use the skills and knowledge from the course in order to design a working robot in small teams. In the first week the course will introduce you to the robotic capabilities of Lego Mindstorm through sample challenges. In the second week you will collaborate in small teams to build robots to compete in a culminating challenge. If you choose to take the course, you should have good math skills, a strong interest in science, engineering and technology, and a desire to solve puzzles.

Prerequisite: Algebra II or above

Final Assessments/Products: Lego Mindstorm Robotics Challenge in which small groups build robots to accomplish a specific set of tasks in the shortest amount of time possible

Short title (transcript): STEM: How Things Work

Mr. Reed, Ms. Pascal

We will walk from the Battery, up Broadway, the length of Manhattan Island to 190th St. The walk will be reasonably demanding. Specific topics that we will  explore include architecture from Greek Revival to skyscraper to modernism; immigration and ethnic neighborhoods; the traditional, albeit somewhat diminished, role of New York City in the nation’s economy; successful and unsuccessful designs of “green spaces”; and infrastructure, cultural institutions, and financing of cities.We will be assigned a short reading everyday  to be read  in preparation for the subsequent day. The reading selections will include Jane Jacobs, among others. Along the way, we will stop for short lectures regarding various aspects of the city based in part on the previous night’s reading and for discussion of student observations. Students in this course should be prepared to work hard independently to process and demonstrate understanding of the various levels of meaning in the city, from the personal to the political.

Final Assessments/Products: daily journal, "Mid-term" oral presentations, final creative product-- literary and photographic in nature—demonstrating scholarly and personal reflection and insight on course themes

Short title (transcript): Walking through Manhattan's History

Mr. Beckman, Mr. Duhaime, Ms. Edwards, Ms. Fischer, Mr. Hawk, Dr. Hobson, Dr. Lankin, Mr. McCall, Dr. Nouaime, Mr. Stilliard

The researching and writing of the Extended Essay (a 4,000-word paper required of candidates for the IB Diploma), is one of the most intense and rewarding intellectual experiences at NA. Working collaboratively in this course, you will learn strategies and share ideas for research and writing. You will spend several days at a local university library identifying, gathering and reviewing sources. Under the supervision of the faculty mentors, and with ample feedback from your peers, you will refine your ideas into a clear and coherent argument. While the explicit context for this course is the IB extended essay, you will gain skills (research, planning, writing) essential to your future academic and professional success.  

Note that while all students in the seminar will produce a strong first draft of their research paper by the end of the course, IB diploma candidates and those non-diploma candidates seeking NA transcript recognition for their projects will be required to complete further development and revision of the final Extended Essay, due on June 19. Students will not be required to be on campus at all between the end of June term and June 19, but they must be available remotely at least part-time to complete a substantial revision of their initial draft.

Final Assessments/Products: a solid draft of the research paper—with full references

Short title (transcript): Advanced Research Seminar