Academy of Science and Technology

March is HERE!!

March 1-EFTA Summer Internship Application Open

3/14-Robotics in San Antonio

3/21-Repsol Luncheon for SciTech

3/23-3/24-TX SEF

Juniors interested in applying for an internship through the EFTA Summer Internship Program can do so beginning on March 1st. These are competitive internships and not everyone will be placed. Please make sure to give teachers enough time to complete letters of recommendation. More information and access to the application can be found here.

I have also updated the internship module in canvas. The students have been alerted to those changes. The biggest/most noticeable change to this the creation of a electronic journal. I have combined the presentation that was required for all students for internship night, and integrated their journal, paper, time log, and self evaluation into the presentation. Students can read all about this in the internship module.

Congrats are in order for lots of our AST students!

Several of our students competed in the SciTech Biotechnology Contest hosted by EFTA in February: Biotechnology Competition - Ninth through twelfth grade students solve problems using their skills to analyze DNA samples. Praseedha Maddipatla and Aarushi Pandey won 2nd Place in Technical Excellence!

SciTech also hosts a Technical Writing Contest immediately after Science Fair. These Technical papers are judged in three categories: Junior High, 9th Grade, and High School. Our Junior High Winners this year will be AST students in the fall!

9th Grade Technical Writing:

1st: Daphnia Magna Filtering Lake Water Pollutants (Thoshika Srinithi Dayalan Gokulakrishnan)

2nd: Growth Effects of Sugar Substitutes on Escherichia coli (Fiona Blackman)

Senior High Technical Writing:

1st Tie:

An Analysis into Particle Loading in Oil Based Ferrofluids (Rishab Ghosh)

Neurolens: Augmented Reality Surgical Aid (Rayhan Papar)

2nd: CorAI: Coral Reef Evaluation (Praseedha Maddipatla)

UIL Mathematics: AST Students recieved 2nd place in Mathematics and Number Sense UIL (team overall results) competition (small school division) on 02/23/24 @ A&M Consolidated HS. Shortly after that competition, we solidified our UIL Teams in Math:

Mathematics UIL:

David Uchime

Andre Kostenko

Vidipsai Pitta

Alexander Gao

Luke Liu

Matthew Yu

Math Alternates:

Aniket Chakraborty

Satvik Maggavi

Number Sense UIL:

Jimmy Hsiao
Ruihan Ma
Rayhan Papar
Owen Ye
Alexander Gao
Luke Liu

Number Sense Alternates:

Vidipsai Pitta

Satvik Maggavi

We were lucky enough to be the inaugural student visitors to the Rampart Technology Facilities in Houston. Special thanks to PAST for securing that field trip. We visited Rampart on our March 5th student break. This was such an important field trip for students because Rampart employees engineers, business professional, and machinists. Our guide, Sean Carter (Vice President of Business Development) made sure to reiterate to our students the important of how different skill sets have to work together to develop, sell, and manufacture products. He's an engineer by education, but made sure that the students understood that theoretical engineering has it's place in academia, but students must be able to understand what their designs are capable of and how each person's role in a company is important. We talked about communication skills and people skills help make businesses successful. You can learn more about Rampart here: https://rampartproducts.com/

I asked our faculty members to write up a little about themselves that I could share with you all. I think it's important that you all get to know who is with your student each day! We are all committed to doing our best and we appreciate your trust in us.

*********************************************

My name is Lyubov Priser and I have taught at the Academy for 14 years and I love coming to work everyday. My favorite part of the Academy is that students end up been friends for a lifetime. Actually, this is true for the Academy teachers as well. I teach Calculus AB, BC and Multivariable. I am also the sponsor for Destination Imagination and Mathematics/Number Sense UIL. Once I am home, I love to take care of my roses and sometimes I will cook for 8 hours straight on the weekend. I enjoy reading Science Fiction and Philosophy and it helps with my work a lot. I love to watch documentaries as well.

The Fish Camp Application was sent out prior to spring break, but can be accessed here. We are looking forward to seeing the creativity of our students, as we've asked for our counselors to create a new tradition for AST and enter a video submission this year!

We will need parents to help Memorial Day Weekend for Fish Camp to be a success. Please complete this interest form HERE. This is an interest form. This form does take into account those of you who might want to volunteer if your student is chosen as a counselor or let us know that you can, but only if your student is not at DI Globals. We know your lives are super busy, but we truly can't do this without you!!

The Summer College Application Prep Assignments are being created right now, and will be fully available by the end of April. Students and parents that want to get a sneak peak can take a look at the Summer College Prep Assignments at any time.

Conroe ISD is creating several summer opportunities for college prep as well including **hopefully** a small college fair and some essay workshops prior to the start of school. These opportunities will, undoubtedly, have some conflicts with travel, etc...but as soon as I receive the dates I will pass them along to you.

Even though course selection is over, I wanted to leave access to these open, especially for our current 9th and 10th graders who may be struggling to four year plan.

AST Four Year Plan Google Sheet

AST Four Year Plan Printable PDF

AST Graduation Check List PDF

AST Graduation Check List DOCX

This is repeated information from the end of the semester, but I thought it was helpful to stay!

Things to add to your family calendar:

• Family Events
• Doctor/Dentist/Orthodontist Appointments
• Extra Curricular Obligations
• Please double check with your sponsors about your R&P dates for competitions
• Please double check with your Athletic/Band/Choir/Orchestra competitions in the spring
• AP Testing Calendar
• Please note, when there is a multi test conflict, we (AST/CP) set the resolution of that conflict as we need to look at ALL the testing that is going on, not just the individual.
• Other AST Events
• Internship Night (great for anyone, but especially juniors looking for internships)-1/30
• Interview Nights (will need some student volunteers)
• DLS/DSS Opportunities--DLS: 2/20, 3/26,4/16 DSS: TBA
• Senior Specific Events--you will receive much more information about these in the spring. That information will come from Dr. Murrell. (The Gala information will come from PAST and me)
• 4/9- Mandatory Senior Class Meeting w/ Dr. Murrell (during the school day-students only)
• 4/26–Prom
• 4/26-Panoramic Picture (before early release)
• 4/30 -Honor Graduate Breakfast 8am (Invitation Only)
• 5/5-AST Gala
• 5/16- Senior Awards Night 6:30pm (Invitation Only)
• 5/23 -Graduation Practice
• 5/23 Senior Picnic
• 5/23 -Graduation 7:30 pm