THE VOICE
April 2017
THE VOICE TV
4 STUDENT MODELS 6 SENIOR MAP
LOVED TEACHER’S LAST YEAR TEACHING
MR. MARIK RETIRES AFTER YEARS OF EDUCATION SERVICES
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BY JESSICA BLUM
retna High School knows of a man that resides on the second floor, room 737. This man has dedicated 53 years of his life to teaching multiple generations, keeping kids engaged and passionate about science. Not only that, but he has been a significant part of the GHS sports as well, coaching basketball, cross country and track every year. He strives to keep passion involved in our daily and future lives. “Keep on enjoying what you are doing and be happy,” Coach Mr. Joe Marik said. “That is why you choose what you want to do.” Some students took the news as a shock because this talk of retirement has been a question for a few years. “I was a little shook at first because I thought he would be here until I graduated,” junior Jillian Brion said. “He has been teaching for 53 years, though, so I decided it was probably good he retired and enjoyed life with his family. He means a lot to me. I can only hope that I’m still nice and fun at his age and have the same outlook on life as he does.” He has been known to not only greatly affect the lives of his students in the classroom, but he has affected those lives on the track and field as well. Senior Emily Romano will always remember Mr. Marik, a crucial part to her sports schedule. “As a coach, Mr. Marik was always the one who took pictures of us while we ran at the meets,” Romano said. “Every time we ran by him, he would always yell encouraging words at us, such as ‘Go get her!’ or ‘Keep going!’ and ‘Keep it up!’ When we weren’t running, I could always count on Mr. Marik to make some kind of joke or jokingly pour water on me when I was laying on the ground claiming he saw a bug. I was sad at first because he was such an important figure in my running career, but then
I realized I’m not going to be here next year anyways, so I was happy for him.” As long as his students are present, Mr. Marik can be found throwing every experiment and knowledge he knows our way, exposing the true nature of science in every new way possible. His favorite part of the job has been the rewarding feeling he gets because it is something he loves to do. Mr. Marik, with 53 years of experience in teaching, is a rare gem of our community. “His passion for teaching is his most admirable quality,” Mr. Miller said. “He is always the first one here and the last one to leave. His passion has kept him going. His retirement will be hard for him at first since he has worked so long and so hard, but it is hard not to respect that passion.” Coach Mr. Spencer Stednitz has had the honor of working with Mr. Marik for 14 years. Every step of the way has come with new obstacles and tasks that they love to accomplish together. His love for the subject is evident in each new expectation and experiment he performs. “When I started at Gretna High School, I thought I knew what it meant to be a good teacher,” Mr. Stednitz said. “I was wrong. Watching Mr. Marik taught me how to really connect with my students and make sure that they understand the concepts I was trying to teach. I know that I am a better teacher because I got to teach with Mr. Marik. I am proud to call him my friend and colleague. I will miss teaching and coaching with him every day.” No matter what he is being a part of or leading, Mr. Marik has balanced the formulas to earn the achievement of job well done. Gretna’s “Papa Chem” will not be soon forgotten, but honored. Thank you, Mr. Marik, for your great educational services all these years!
NINE PLANETS HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED
Support from the Sidelines A very important job for coaches is to be a factor from the sidelines, cheering and motivating with every turn of the legs. Mr. Marik has done this and more, hugging Mazie Larsen (18) as she earned yet another medal from an outstanding performance last year. Mr. Marik will be leaving a big hole in the staff of Gretna High School. Submitted photo.
Then and Now From about 1965 to 2017, coach and teacher Mr. Joe Marik has been greatly and completely involved in serving the Gretna community. From the time the first photo on the left was taken to the time when the right photo was taken, Mr. Marik has made and been the center of countless memories for generations. It does not take long to realize that everyone in Gretna either knows about Mr. Marik or knows someone else who knows Mr. Marik.
NASA PROVES “ANOTHER EARTH” IS CLOSER THAN WE THINK
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BY RUTHIE ISAACSON
magine if in 100 years, Earth was not the only planet we could live on. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration recently discovered seven inhabitable planets orbiting around the same star. “If we find a way to make it to this system it could in fact change our lives,” freshman Josh Human said. On Feb. 22, NASA released a tweet saying, “Around a nearby, cold, small star we found seven rocky Earth-size planets, all of which could have liquid water - key to life as we know it.” Since then, these planets have taken over the news and the web. “This is cool because number one we might be able to find aliens,” science instructor Mr. Harders said. “Or number two we might be able to move there if we kill our planet at some point.” Information concerning the planets is limited until we launch the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018, a more sensitive telescope that can reveal crucial details. Until that technology is used, scientists can only guess at what the planets look like based on their distance from a star and their location in outer space. “The star itself is a lot smaller than our sun, a lot more dense which means it is cold,” Mr. Harders said. “Around that star there are seven planets orbiting.” The possibility of living somewhere else other than Earth is a foreign, yet exciting idea. However, not all seven planets have an environment that could sustain human life. “Three of the seven planets are located in the habitable zone, or the ‘Goldilocks’ zone,”
Human said. “This means that life could exist on these planets and maybe we could even live there.” If given the choice to travel out of our solar system, would you? Although a new adventure awaits, the outcome is uncertain and for many people, a deal breaker. “I do not know if I would ever try and go visit these planets,” Human said. “It would probably cost a lot of money to send humans there and it would be very risky and dangerous.” On of the reigning problems with living on these alien planets is the distance. The system where the seven planets are located is called TRAPPIST-1 and is 39 light years away. Currently, the farthest a spacecraft has traveled into space is about 0.002 light years. It would take NASA’s fastest spacecraft, the New Horizons, 817,000 years to travel to the seven planet system. If we did manage to send people there it would take 39 light years to get there,” Human said. “We would have to master cryogenics or some other way to get people there without them dying of old age on the way.” Compared to our solar system, the TRAPPIST-1 system is very small. Their star is 12 times smaller than our sun as well as cooler. “Because the star is so small, the planets’ orbits are also small,” Human said. “In fact, all of their orbits can fit inside of the orbit of Mercury.” The odds that planets similar to Earth exist were always high, but finding them in the billions of lightyears of outer space seemed almost impossible. Now that they have been discovered, the possibilities of space travel are endless.
Experiments Mr. Marik shows his Advanced Chemistry students how to do the experiment for the day. He is the only instructor for the class so it is unknown who will be teaching next year if it is even offered.
Rewards Scratch and sniff stickers are offered to students who do well on tests in Mr. Marik’s Chemistry and Advanced Chemistry classes. Students who score a 100 on the tests get the most stickers