The Rampage The Newspaper of the Ramaz Upper School
New York • Volume 65 • Issue 6 • March 2021 • Nissan 5781• the-rampage.org
Saving the World One Bottle at a Time
Andrew Spielfogel ’23 Every year, millions of plastic water bottles pollute Earth’s oceans, building up waste that disrupts ecosystems and natural habitats. The mission of the Ramaz Environmental Club is to create an awareness of environmental pollution and
to encourage people to develop a culture and lifestyle of sustainability based on this awareness. The Environmental Club is constantly championing public awareness in our school and the greater community. For instance, they started composting lunch scraps, organized Tu B’shvat programs and of course, the Luv Your Lulav program that engaged local synagogues and one in Atlantic Beach. Recently, the club decided to keep it simple in order to get every student involved and engaged, while at the same time, showing off their school pride. Disposable plastic water bottles in Ramaz have become ubiquitous, particularly during the COVID-19 era when the water fountains are locked and sharing a water fountain has become a less attractive option anyway. The vending machines have been spewing disposable plastic water bottles continuously. The club’s new initiative was to design an environmentally friendly metal water bottle displaying the attractive “green ram” logo. If the entire student body and faculty gets behind the project, we can keep thousands of plastic bottles from being added to the plastic pollution problem, while staying hydrated, and showing
off our school pride. The new motion sensor water filling stations should make this task seamless. When asked how students felt about this program, they all responded enthusiastically. Daniela Woldenberg ’23 said, “This year, we are not able to drink from the water fountains as usual, therefore, more people are buying plastic water bottles. It’s not only good in the sense that we’re cutting down on plastic waste but that the proceeds are going to a good cause.” A portion of the proceeds will be going to an environmental charitable cause. Additionally, this initiative reinforces a commitment to sustainability at Ramaz, which is recognized by new and existing students. Jem Hanan ’23 said “I think it spreads the message that we are environmentally aware. Coming from my old school, everybody was buying plastic water bottles everyday. At Ramaz, seeing everyone with reusable water bottles spreads a positive message. I also reContinued on Page 4
Techie, Technology on Schedule? Sarah Silverman ’24
find out a student’s schedule, or connect with other teachers to find free meeting times during the day,” said Mr. Vovsha. When Techie launched, Ramaz did not inform students of this new tool at their fingertips. “I’ve been receiving the emails but did not know the name of the program.” said Eva Goldfinger ’24. Philip-David Medows ‘24 said, “The emails just started coming one day. It was cool and self-explanatory.” Students learned to adapt and understand the program on their own. The Techie emails are known to have errors such as incorrect or outdated Zoom links and incorrect schedules. At first, links for senior minicourses were not provided, However, this was clearly stated at the top of Techie emails. “It [Techie] sounds great in theory but not in practice,” said Goldfinger ‘24, “From what I’ve heard, there have been a lot of issues, and it seems less practical than the old way.” Last semester, Ramaz opted for a policy in which teachers were required to manually input all of their Zoom links and classes to the Schoology calendar. “This was a major time-waster,” said Mr. Vovsha. This tedious task was one of the many reasons for the inception of Techie. “We can save teachers a lot of headaches and confusion” he said. Through Schoology, students would go to the
Ramaz students have been bombarded with emails recently, not from a person, but rather a new automated scheduling system. This system, called “Techie,” is a software developed by Mr. Vovsha to help ease students’ and administrators’ stresses during these anxiety-ridden times. “I wanted to help students and faculty deal with their Zoom links and ever-changing schedules.” said Mr. Vovsha. Most students recognize Techie from the daily emails that are sent to everyone’s inbox each night before class. In this email, the list of classes for that day is provided, including the corresponding Zoom links and meeting times. The emailed schedules are just one component of Techie. The program is dependent on external data. It is essentially made up of one enormous excel spreadsheet, listing every student’s Zoom links and classes. “Techie is a software devoted to making the lives of administrators and teachers easier. It is still a work in progress, but when completed, it will be a downloadable app such as Google Chrome or any other desktop application. Ms. Krupka and Dr. Jucovy are currently testing out the project in its beta phase. The application itself has many functions. A teacher can use it to get room information,
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Inside this issue...
Five Captains too Many? page
8
Psalm vs. Palm page
12
Should Ramaz Require Gender Pronouns? page
6
page
8