To the Future Advance Placement Biology Students...

               Some advice from me, is that you need to be extremely dedicated to your learning. You have to really want to work hard for this class. If you aren't willing  you will not be very successful. I was not particularly motivated to do the work in this class, and my grades and GPA took a hit from it. Just in general, once you're in, be dedicated. Treat it like a difficult class because, that's what it is. Do the work, and listen in class. The tests are different in this class as well so be prepared. Mr. Landry is a great teacher, and knows a lot about the materials so he can answer a lot of the questions you may have. In that regard, ASK QUESTIONS!!! If you are stuck on a topic, or don't remember an equation, ASK! I didn't, and I was just more confused as we went on in the course. Overall, the class is great and covers a lot of the biology topics. I would suggest this to other students, just as long as they are dedicated like I said before. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Have A great Year!!! :)
 

Homecoming in Sparta, Michigan

           The ritual of Homecoming in Sparta is different than any other place that I know of. To begin off the celebration, we have each class pick a topic from our general theme which is chosen by student council, and a color. My freshman year the theme was Continents. The Freshman class had Antarctica and baby blue, the Sophomore class had Asia and purple, the Junior class had Africa and red, and the Senior class had North America and black, but the seniors always have black. My Sophomore year the theme was Musicals. The Freshman class had High School Musical and red, the Sophomore class had Grease and grey, the Junior class had Footloose and green, and the Senior class had The Rock of Ages and black. And this year our theme was Decades. each grade picked a different decade to represent. The Freshman class had the 90's and purple. The Sophomore class had the 70's and teal. The Junior class had the 20's and green. And the Senior class had the 80's and black.
          Every day of the week of homecoming is a different dress up day. The Friday before the homecoming game everyone wears their class t-shirt or class color if they didn't order a class t-shirt. Then everyday after that varies every year. Like this year, Monday was dress up from your favorite decade, Tuesday was crazy hair day, Wednesday was pajama day, and Thursday was twin day. And everyday that is a dress up day, the teachers take a count and give out points. The Friday of the
Homecoming football game, everyone decks themselves out in their class colors to get as many points as possible.
           The best part about the Friday of the game we have no academic classes at the high school. We play different games all day to earn points for our grade. But we only play games after we hear the speeches from the elected homecoming court members and vote for who we think should win. Also for a length of time before any of this happens, each class builds a float which gets judged and points given, and also choreograph a mock rock, which is a dance that is performed in front of the whole school for points.
       By this point you might be asking what all of the point are for, they are for the RED APPLE! That is the "trophy" that each grade is competing for. The senior class wins almost every year but it's still a blast to just come together as a school. Then the football game happens. Sparta hasn't won a Homecoming football game in six years... but we totally kicked butt and won this year at a total of 41- 14 against Coopersville. This is when the Homecoming King and Queen are announced. The Red Apple is awarded at this point also.
        On Saturday the dance happens. Everyone dresses all up in formal wear and goes to dinner or hangs out with friends or does whatever, and then we all show up to the school and dance our cares away for three hours. If you showed up to the dance there would be piles of high heels everywhere because most girls show up to the school and kick them off so they are able to dance.
          Homecoming is the best part of the school year in my opinion because it doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, where you are originally from, it doesn't matter. That week, that day, is all about Sparta and representing who we are as a community. Its all about coming together to support your team. Its about being together, being Sparta.

 

 

First Blog

    My name is Jarilyn Regeczi. I am 16 years old. And I will be a junior this school year. I actually have just recently decided what I wanted my career to be. I have had ideas before about the profession that I wanted to go into. At first I wanted to go into Medical Billing and Coding, because the medical field is growing but I don't do really well with like sickness and blood and that kind of stuff. But I have recently decided that I wnat to go into the Genetics field. My family has many problems with different cancers. My grandma passed away from a very aggresive breast cancer. To prevent more hardships, my mom and her two sisters were tested for that gene. My mom's test came back positive. Everything worked out ok. But that was kind of the point when I started to rethink my plan, because if I can help people to find out about the diseases they might potentionaly have in their systems, and then help them to prevent it, I would feel so happy and accomplished. I don't really know the specifics of what I want to do but that is the general field. some reasons that I am taking this course is because to be in the genetics field you need alot of science knowledge, and I have always been really intersted in this type of things. My favorite part of last year's biology class was when we learned about DNA and how it affects a person's traits. In this course I hope to acheive knowledge that I can use in my career.