

Academy of Science and Technology
Newsletter-Reminders-Accolades-More

Spring Semester Is HERE!!
The spring semester is a full of hustle and bustle, bus trips, R&P madness and celebrations! Keep close eyes on your calendars, but more importantly on our students! Please make sure that there is rest built in. Sometimes it takes scheduling time to do nothing to get that accomplished!
January
1/6-Robotics KickOff--Challenge Announced
1/12-Donut Day, Coffee with the Headmaster
1/13-DI Practice Meet for Elementary Schools
1/15-Science Fair Student Paperwork Due Date--students know all about this!!!
1/18, 1/22, 1/24-AST Class of 28 Interviews
1/25-SciTech-Science Fair for all 9th graders, and for 10-12 R&P Students
1/26-Science Symposium @ A&M for qualified students
1/27-SciTech Awards @ Lone Star College
1/30-Internship Night (this is GREAT for our juniors who will be looking for internships this year)
We will need an immense amount of help for our AST Interview Nights...approximately 20 students per night. Students may earn up to 2 (for volunteering a minimum of two nights) exploration credits for volunteering. Students who volunteer one night will still have the opportunity to earn 1 Exploration Credit. Students who are interested in volunteering should fill out THIS FORM to do so.
Any student who is considering applying to be an AST Fish Camp Counselor should highly consider volunteering for this night, even if they don't need exploration credits. While it will not be a required part of the Fish Camp Counselor application, it would be great to have already met these incoming students. Again, it's not a requirement, but something that you should consider.
Faculty Spotlight...Yevheniya Bauer-Mathematics
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.
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Hello, I am Yevheniya Bauer, your children’s guide through the mystical realms of Geometry and the heart pounding territory of Precalculus. With 23 years of teaching under my belt and currently in my 6th year at the AST (Adventure Seekers Training), year after year I have been turning Math into a journey of discovery of Math secrets.
But wait, there is more! When the school bell rings and the school day is over, I put on my Texas Torque Robotics hat as the proud mentor of our Robotics Dream team- Texas Torque. During the build season robotics becomes my life’s grand quest, a time when the gears grind towards one noble goal – building the ultimate robot for the epic competitions ahead of us.
In the non-mathematical dimension, I am a co-captain of the family ship that has sailed through high and low waves. Together with my husband we have raised a fantastic four- business serial entrepreneur, a sales manager maestro, an engineering wizard, and a high-flying pilot (still in training). Raising them has been the greatest adventure of our lives.
When I am not waiving a magical wand of mathematics or tinkering with robots, you will find me daydreaming about traveling adventures in Italy or Japan and thinking of trading of my notes and worksheets for gelato and sushi for a few days. Sure, there are other destinations on my list, but for now, we are working on the smaller goals, like perfecting ordering coffee in multiple languages!
Staying Scheduled In Spring
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
January 12th is a Coffee with the Headmaster Presentation that will focus primarily on College Admission. If you are planning to attend, here is a link to let us know that you are coming so that we can best plan for your attendance and so I can gather questions from you. I will also introduce the summer college planning information that I hope will help both you and our students stay on top of college admissions madness well before their senior year.
I know that not everyone can attend, so I plan to do a voice over of the presentation and send it out the following week with the next newsletter. I do hope, however, you will attend if possible. The program will run from 9-10:30am. I will conclude the program promptly at 10:30, as I am meeting with all of our science fair students that day and can not be late...as I promised them cookies that day--and they will be expecting them!
Thanks For Asking, It Was Fun!
Several of you remembered that I was traveling over the break, and have asked about it. While our original plan was to visit both Lebanon and Egypt over the break, we pivoted and spent our entire trip in Egypt. It was a fun trip (book-ended by long hours of travel) and we really enjoyed it. The best part was watching our mom get to see something she's been obsessed with since she was a child. My 75 year old mother grew up in abject poverty in deep East Texas, the only child of two people whose formal education stopped at 11 and 14. Mom saw pictures and an article about the pyramids in an old National Geographic that a family member had in the mid 50s and has been a fan of Egyptology ever since. So it was definitely a special trip.
I wanted to include three pictures. One is of the Pyramid of Khufu (The Great Pyramid) from a street in Cairo. It was very jarring for me as a person who grew up in a town of 5000 people to be in a city of 10 million people, turn a corner on a street and see The Great Pyramid. It was startling! I knew that they were not far away from Cairo/Giza, but that's still not what I expected. We visited a ton of places, but I loved visiting the Muhammad Ali Mosque or Alabaster Mosque that's located in the Citadel of Cairo. This picture does not do justice to the absolute beauty that I saw. It was amazing. The final picture is the view of the Nile that I had one night during dinner. It was very cool as a history major in college to be able to see so many places that I had studied!