In Michael Sciacca’s third period Virtual Enterprise class:

Abeille, a beehive-leasing company, is this year’s business for the third period Virtual Enterprise class.

Abeille’s CEO and CFO are Raquel Friedmann and Edith Esparza, respectively.

Edith said, “I’m excited for our company and I’m excited to win nationals!”

Abeille’s business model is to lease beehives to farmers who need bees to pollinate their crops. When Abeille is done leasing the bees, they reclaim the bees’ honey, wax, and other byproducts to sell to other companies that use them in their own manufacturing.

In Sciacca’s first period Virtual Enterprise class:

First period Virtual Enterprise’s business is The Great Park Wildlife Center based in Irvine, California.

Cesar Chavez and Brooke Morrow are the company’s CEO and CFO.

Cesar said, “We have a big weight on our shoulders from last year. We can only hope to follow in their footsteps and start a tradition for Costa Mesa Business Academy.”

The Great Park Wildlife Center will be a local attraction. It is similar to a zoo, but The Great Park Wildlife Center gives visitors the ability to pet some of the animals and learn about the wildlife of the area.

“Sometimes it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish, and first period is showing signs of that,” said Mr. Sciacca, Virtual Enterprise’s teacher.

EMA academy students had their Student Energy Audit Training this Monday, October 24th.  At this on-campus field trip students spent the day learning about the importance of saving energy, and how to use the specific tools necessary to see the amount of energy a room is consuming. Schools pay more for energy than for computers and textbooks combined. Research has shown that each year, schools in California spend almost $700 million a year on energy. 

The students did several activities, one with a handful of grain. They took the grain and passed it by hand through 11 people, losing a bit of grain each time it was passed. By the time it had gone through everyone, they’d lost about half the grain, which symbolized the efficiency of a coal fired power plant. 

Next they learned the difference between the three different types of light bulbs: incandescent, compact florescent, and LED. They noted the difference in heat over time, how much light it produced, and how much energy it consumed, in order to see which was the most energy efficient. The bulb that stayed the coolest, produced the most light, and consumed the least amount of energy was the LED light. The light may be more expensive to purchase, but the students decided that in the long run it would end up saving the school the most money. 

The EMA students also discussed that nearly every classroom is over lit when all of the lights are turned on. The IES recommended amount of light is 30-50fc (foot-candles), and an average classroom is about 68.43fc’s. With half the lights off, the room was at 42.7fc, which is in the recommended amount of light. 

At one point, all EMA participants went to Mrs. Kelly’s and Mrs. Rasmussen’s classrooms to see how energy efficient they were. The students used several tools to check this like a “watt meter” which tells you how many watts something uses and how many watts it uses in phantom mode. Phantom mode is when something is off, but still plugged in and consuming energy. 75% of power is consumed when electronics are in phantom mode, so to be sure it’s not consuming any more energy, you have to completely unplug it, or turn off the power strip.

Thomas Edison reportedly once said, “It's better to enlighten a child than to light a school room,” This just goes to show you that you don’t need to necessarily use a lot of energy in a classroom to learn something. The EMA field trip has taught us all a little bit about energy waste.

Josh Wills-King, a student at Corona del Mar, was body-surfing when he saw a man thrashing in the Corona Beach water last week. 

Wills-King was swimming 200 feet away from shore, and the man was an additional 25 feet away. Fearing that the man was a victim of a shark attack, Wills-King swam over to him and asked if he required any help or assistance. 

"I kept saying, 'Sir,are you OK?' He was completely unresponsive." 

Wills-King then noticed the man had been injured with a gash on his head and took immediate action by seizing him and holding him above the surf. At the shore, after calling for help and getting him into an ambulance, a crowd of people amassed and praised Wills-King for his initiative. Wills-King then went back into the water as if the whole incident never happened. 

"I just went on with my life,” he said, "You've got to get back to life."

Dan Wheldon died at the age of 33 as he was caught in the largest IndyCar pileup in history.  This was the first death in IndyCar since 2006.

On Sunday, October 16th in Las Vegas, the IndyCar season finale was taking place. Meant to be a 200 lap race, it only took 11 for disaster to strike. On the first turn of lap 11, Dan found himself hopelessly trapped in a maze of out-of-control cars. It didn’t take long for a crash to occur. More than half of the racer's cars were totaled and three drivers were even sent to the hospital. Paramedics reached the crash site within minutes, but it was not soon enough for Dan. His car had spiraled into the air and smashed into the fence. Reporters were told that he had received "unsurvivable injuries." 

"One minute you're joking around at driver intros and the next, Dan's gone," said Dario Franchitti. 

The course was cleaned of the mangled vehicles and the remaining drivers held a meeting to determine the outcome of the race.  The final decision was to end the race and give five laps as a memorial for Dan. This decision ends the season in a way nobody could have anticipated, giving Dario Franchitti the championship victory, but in the end no one was celebrating.  

Dan joined the IRL league in 2002 and had more than his fair share of achievements. He was awarded Rookie of the Year in 2004, won the 2005 Indy 500, won the 2005 championship, and held the record for most wins (six) in a single season. Dan was a great friend of many of the drivers, idol to the fans, and a competitive racer.  

Protests erupt all over the world as the Occupy movement spreads. The goal of this movement was to tell the world of the increasing prosperity of the rich while the average man went into debt.

The Occupy movement has also hit local areas such as Irvine where about 600 protesters gathered. The group attempted to set camp and protest overnight, but was denied by the Irvine Police.

Another protest was scheduled for next Saturday at Santa Ana but police have told organizers they will still enforce the camping ban.

The biggest movement in California thus far was held at Los Angeles where 5,000 protesters gathered at the City Hall.

Beginning at Wall Street in New York on September 17, the protests have expanded around the globe. Thousands of citizens around the world rallied in cities causing traffic. The Wall Street protests were supported by media coverage which spread the word of the event around the nation, gathering followers to the same cause.      

Not all protests have been peaceful. In Rome, violence erupted while protesters battled police and cars were set ablaze. In New York, the origin of this rising movement, 5,000 people assembled and still some argued that there were too little present.

"People don't want to get involved. They'd rather watch it on TV," said Troy Simmons, a demonstrator who left work to be a part of the movement.

Saturday, October 15th, was Costa Mesa High School's annual Homecoming Dance. Over 300 students attended the Wonka themed event, 292 of them presale ticketers.

ASBers gathered in the large gym at 9 in the morning to begin setting up for the night. The process of putting together decorations, prepping the candy booth, and setting down tarps across the gym floors took the team of 25 about 3 hours to complete. The DJ from SOS Entertainment came in at noon to set up lights, dancing platforms, and run sound checks.

At 8pm, once teachers and staff chaperoning the dance were placed in their designated stations, students began to arrive and the dance was officially up and running. Attendees formed lines that backed up into the parking lot as they waited to check in at the guest list. Students were asked to present their ID cards at the door, but those who forgot them were still allowed into the dance. Breathalyzer tests were administered by activities director Carey Scott and High School Principal Dr. D'Agostino. Pictures were available for purchase by Stanford Studios.

Students danced the night away until 11:30 pm, taking breaks to grab sips of water. Some wallflowers preferred to stay back and enjoy the Wonka treats available at the candy bar. Some even watched a special screening of the original "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in the movie area that was blocked off from the dance by curtains, where benches had been set up for those who wished to watch. Notably, one student, Joe Williams, danced literally all night as the DJ dubbed him "James Bond".

Towards the end of the night, the DJ took a break from spinning his tracks as Junior Class President Courtney Hatch took the moment to crown 2011 Homecoming King Kory Bennion, who, after being crowned, led the slow dance with Queen Jackie Waldron.

At the end of the night, the boys loosened their ties and the girls, with heels in hand, said their goodbyes and called it a night as the gym doors shut and the lights went down. 

College Night 2011 was held at the Orange County Fairgrounds on Wednesday, October 12, from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Over 80 institutions from across the nation were represented.

Common questions students asked were about SAT or GPA requirements, nursing and engineering programs, success rates of going into industries, and, in the case of some religiously affiliated schools, any requirements regarding religious affiliation.

Some students found that they might not fit certain admissions criteria or that their school of choice did not offer programs that they wanted. For example, Edward Jaimes, a senior here at CMHS, said, “Some colleges don’t have an ROTC program, so you can ask if you can attend a nearby college with an ROTC program while being enrolled in the college you want.” Colleges are willing to work with students so that they can attend.

As students walked into the building, they were given a list of all the colleges and universities that planned on attending. Some colleges had not attended, however. Eric Medina, a senior from CMHS, had something to say about this: “I’m a little bit bummed because CSU Long Beach isn’t here and it was my first choice, but I got plenty of good information everywhere else.”

When asked whether he would rather go to College Night or online for information, junior Chris Torres said, “It’s easier coming here because you get to talk to people face to face and they’re people who actually go there.”

For some students like Chris Torres, it was their first time coming to College Night. For some like Edward Jaimes, it was not. Some had attended for their second or third time. Some students had come because their teachers suggested them. “College Night was well worth it; I wish I had taken my teacher’s advice all those years ago,” said Eric Medina.

Last Thursday, Costa Mesa High's Mrs. Rasmussen returned to continue her teaching. She was absent during the first month of school after the birth of her second child. Mrs. Rasmussen is the AP Environmental and Marine Science teacher, as well as the coordinator for EMA, and has taught at Costa Mesa for 7 years; 6 of those years teaching science and 1 year teaching math.

Many of her students are happy to have her back. "I think it's a great thing for her to finally be back teaching, because having an actual teacher is a far superior learning environment," says Joseph Williams. Another student, Timothy Lay, responded,  “Well I think she's chill,” and when asked how he felt about Mrs. Rasmussen coming back, replied, “Uh...good.” Mrs. Rasmussen is excited about teaching again and when asked about her return, she responded, “It's been really good. I'm happy to be back because I really like my students.”    

Photo by Kyle Picco 

The Dream Act makes dreams of California students come true. This controversial act was just passed, allowing illegal aliens to be able to apply for financial aid and California funded scholarships. Governor Jerry Brown recently passed legislation enabling illegal aliens in California to receive taxpayer money for their college tuition.

This act includes AB 130, which allows illegal aliens that have received a high school diploma or equivalent, and enrolled in an accredited California college, to be exempt from paying nonresident tuition at the California Community Colleges and the California State University to support the recently passed AB 131, passed in June of 2011, which provides students who are exempt from paying nonresident tuition or who meet equivalent requirements to be eligible to apply for, and participate in, any student financial aid program administered by the State of California to the full extent permitted by federal law.

The Dream Act has created controversy not only within states such as Arizona, which is becoming well known for their increasingly strict enforcement against illegal aliens and immigrants, as well as parents of high school and college students that are concerned for the chance of their children to be able to receive a college education at little to no expense. "You are illegally in the United States and you are taking a spot away from my child, my neighbor's child, and every American child that belongs in the school that you want to attend," said Michelle Dallacroce, the President and Founder of Mothers against Illegal Amnesty.

In support of the act, a student enrolled in a PhD program at ASU comments that this act not only benefits those illegal aliens and undocumented immigrants that are attending the colleges with their expenses paid, but also benefits California in the end due to the great amount of immigrants that will become college graduates and work towards benefiting the economy and overall society.

"I want to do things that are not just going to benefit me as an immigrant but I want to do things that are going to benefit the society at large regardless of immigration status," he said. 

Pictures taken from: http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/uploads/images/article-images/CADreamAct_logo_4c_thumb.png
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The Costa Mesa High School/Middle School Campus faced a surge of activity this week as the highly anticipated annual Club Rush event took place. 

A total of 22 clubs gathered in the lower quad on Thursday and Friday to introduce themselves to the students. On Thursday, the organizations promoted themselves and were able to recruit new members. Several culture clubs were present including: Asian Club, Pacific-Islander Club, and Latino Culture Club.  One of the members of Latino Culture Club explained the purpose of the club to be a place “to bring Latin races together.”  

On the other side of the lower quad stood S.N.A.C., or Student Nutrition Action Club, who’s purpose is to promote healthy eating among students.  Business, Virtual Enterprise periods 1 and 3, Entrepreneurship, Journalism, Band, and Choir were among the classes and academies present that wished to introduce themselves to the students.

As Friday approached, the congregation of informational booths turned into a bustling marketplace.  The booths sold food and services to make money for their clubs.  Gamers Club set up a barbecue, selling bacon-wrapped hot dogs for a dollar.  Key Club also made major profits as they sold out of In-N-Out Hamburgers during the high school lunch.  

Unlike the food-selling booths around them, Junior Class Business Academy took a different approach and gave both high school and middle school students the opportunity to throw pies at their teachers and principals.  Journalism’s section turned into a photo booth where students could dress up and take pictures in front of a green screen.  For a little extra, a backdrop could be purchased to fill up the green screen.  Last year’s graduate Dominick Walker returned to promote Costa Mesa’s Skate Club and Team.  Many bystanders watched in awe as members of the club did tricks on the ramp that the club had set up.  

As the bell rang and the day drew to a close many clubs were facing the same question: What were they going to do with all the leftover food?  As the clock ticked, members of Asian Club rushed to give away leftover fried rice and National Honor Society members gave away the abundance of breadsticks.  In the end, the day was a success as many clubs drew in major profits.