Down ‘n’ dirty:News [3]The Network [November 2013]

“Eww!" "Disgusting!" and "Nasty!" are just a few of the words that were whirl-

ing through the minds of the freshmen in Mrs. Linda Brock’s biology class, when they found out they were dis-secting owl pellets.

“My pellet looked similar to feces; it was fairly big, circular, and dark brown,” freshman Margaret Gerards said.

“Some overreacted when they found out, but soon learned that it is not throw up or feces they’re working with,” Brock said.

The owl pellet dissection was added to the curriculum when Brock suggest-ed it as a means of incorporating ev-erything that the classes had learned. “I just thought it was a good way to tie the chapter together as well as the ability to interpret graphs, which is important for the ACT,” Brock said.

Gerards was hesitant to dissect the owl pellets because of a previous experience she had. “In third grade, my class was dissecting owl pellets with partners. I was with my cousin and we were working on the classroom

floor, when she asked me to see which bones were the ribs. I was searching through the bones on the tray and my elbow slipped, knocking the contents of tray in the air. My mouth was open and I ended up swallowing some of the owl pellet bones. The teacher still uses me as an example in her class.” The dissection went better for Gerards this time around, considering she didn’t swallow any pellets.

Freshman Grace Gus-tafson was still grossed out, even though she had done the dissection before. “It was a lot cooler dissecting owl pellets this time, because we are going more in depth with it and writing a research paper.” Gustafson de-scribes the pellets as being hard on the outside and feathery and furry on the inside. “I actually touched it with my hands, because it was easier to pick

apart the bones. I found a rat skull with the teeth still in it; it was easy to

identify because it was so big.” Gerards also found a rat skull. “I

learned that rat’s teeth are very sharp after I cut myself on a rat’s tooth.”

Overall, Brock’s students responded well to the dissection. “They loved it.

Some of them were disgust-ed at first, but got right into it and were surprised at what they found,” she said.

Gerards said she wouldn’t be too excited to do the dissec-tion again. “Only if I HAD to. Although, it’s actually pretty inter-esting once you start get-ting into it,” Gerards said.

Brock hopes to keep the owl pellet dissection as part of the curriculum, “I’m going to do it as long as I’m here!”

christinachapman

Dissection in depth Maggie Tolley ‘17 and Rachel Weremy ‘17 dissect owl pellets in their biology class. This is the first year the freshmen have dissected owl pellets thanks to the suggestion of new Biology teacher Mrs. Linda Brock. photo by madisonkenney

Freshmen dive into owl pellet dissection

As I scroll through my Twitter timeline, I see a tweet from one of my

favorite accounts (@TweetLikeA-Girl) and I stop what I’m doing to

read it. School: please get a full night of sleep

School: but don’t forget to do 876543 hours of homeworkSchool: and study for testsSchool: be a well rounded student by join-ing clubsSchool: and participating in sports so you don’t come home until 6p.m.

School: but make sure you eat a full meal in the morning

School: kids need a balanced dietSchool: here, eat cardboard with red paint, it’s called

“pizza”I laughed. Although some of that is exagger-

ated, the point of the tweet is true: it’s impossible to be an overachieving A+ honor-roll team captain perfect student, with perfect health, a social life, a family life, and a sleep life.

School is similar to the popular children’s story, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. If teachers give students home-work, they will have to stay up late for club meetings, sports practices, and jobs. If students stay up late, then that means they don’t get enough sleep. When you don’t get enough sleep, then all you want to do the next morning is sleep.

When you sleep in, you have to rush to get ready and miss breakfast. When you miss breakfast, you get hungry. When you get hungry, you want a snack. When you sneak a snack, you have to miss out on important notes and run the risk of getting a point.

When you miss the important notes for a test the next day, you have to get the notes from your friend. When you get the notes and copy them down, you take away time from studying for other classes. And when you stay up late studying for the other classes, the vicious cycle starts all

over again. I know from personal experience (as most of us do) that

not getting enough sleep can lead to getting sick. If I get overly tired and don’t catch up on sleep, I am bound to get sick. Since I have an immune-deficiency problem, I have to take special measures to make sure that I get enough sleep. Teachers seem oblivious to the fact that we have seven oth-er classes. If teachers were more aware of the students’ other classes, then maybe they wouldn’t give so much homework. It often feels like I am having to pick between sleep, home-work, and my health.

So maybe being involved in every club and sport, being in all honors classes, and having a job isn’t the best idea out there. Now you ask yourself, what is the best idea? The best idea is to find out where your strong suit is. If it is being a leader, then maybe you should be involved with student council; if it is basketball, then try out for the school’s bas-ketball team; if you are really good at math, then try being in the honors math class or being a tutor. It is better to be amazing at one thing than mediocre at five things.

If You Give A Student HomeworkBeing Over-Involved Leads to Health Issues christinachapman

Bye bye birdie: Flappy bird crashes to its death

Addiction, fury, and determi-nation are the emotions of millions of iPhone and Android

users tapping a tiny bird through an obstacle course of metal pipes.

The app that has taken flight to the top of the charts, has recently been taken down by its creator, Dong Nguyen.

According to CNN, Dong Nguyen is a Vietnamese app creator and thought of the app as a way to relax. On Feb. 8, Nguyen tweeted, “I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 2 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore.” Minutes later he tweet-ed, “It is not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore.” Nguyen tweeted that he is not going to sell Flappy, but he will continue to make games.

A majority of the girls who took The Network Survey downloaded the app

because of the attention it was getting on social media sites. Freshman Ione Enderez downloaded the app because it was number one in the App Store. “I only had the app for a week before I got my high score of 158,” Enderez said.

Even though Nguyen isn’t selling the app, others have taken it upon themselves to sell the app in their own way. Sellers on eBay are selling phones and tablets with Flappy Bird installed from $335 to upwards of $90,000. Sites reported a white iP-hone 5s being auctioned for $90,200 with 60 different bidders, while others reported it reached 74 bid-ders with the highest bid being close to $100,000. EBay took the auction down due to speculations that some bids were frauds.

“It’s a good business investment, and I understand why people would

buy it because it is an addicting game,” Enderez said. Many people disagree with Nguyen’s decision to not sell the app. “If he sold it then he could get it off of his hands, and his issues of not wanting attention would be solved,” Enderez said.

Senior Monica Marasco says that Flappy Bird is just a trend. “Flappy Bird is a trend, and it is not smart to buy a phone with the app on it because the trend will eventually die down,” Marasco said. Sophomore Kierstyn Wattier thinks the game’s challenging aspect makes it so addicting. Seven-ty-one percent of Marian students who responded to The Network survey found Flappy Bird to be addicting. “It’s hard and you want to get a high score, but you can’t because it is so hard,” Wattier said. “It’s addicting be-cause it is so simple and the fact that you aren’t good at it, makes you feel

pathetic because you can’t get a bird to fly through pipes,” Enderez said.

Wattier was playing Flappy Bird in the Quad when she got really frustrat-ed. “I was playing it and got frustrated so I chucked my phone across the room,” Wattier said.

Flappy Bird brought out a side of Enderez’s dad that she has never seen before. “My dad texted me saying that he was outside in the pickup line, and when I walked out cars were honking at him. When I got in the car he said that he was playing Flappy Bird. He is normally so attentive to things so it was interesting seeing that,” Enderez said.

Even though Flappy Bird has fallen to its death, it will continue to live on. No one could have ever imagined that a tiny bird and metal pipes could be so addicting and cause such an uproar.

christinachapman

Christina ChapmanA2 Headline WritingOmaha Marian