Dec. 1 Special Insert

The Spectacle NEWS INSERT page 1 Dec. 1, 2011

Have you purchased your 2011-2012 yearbook yet?

If you wait until February, it will cost $35

Don’t wait until the last minute!

Buy now for $25Grades 7-12

All sports, prom, and graduation!

To Buy:Bring your cash or check made out to “Mesa

Vista Yearbook” to the school library

New Mexico has the HIGHEST jail time for providing alcohol to minors.

It is a FELONY in New Mexico.

When you are a felon in NM:

Hey! Did you know?

Is it really worth it? Just say no! A message from the Northern Rio Arriba County Health Coalition

The legal drink-ing age is 21. It is against the law to serve or pro-vide alcohol to underage guests or to allow them to drink alcohol in your house or on other proper-ty you own. The penalty is a fine up to $2,000, imprisonment for up to a year!

•Cannot own a gun or ammunition•Cannot vote until released from probation, prison/jail, or parole•Can be limited on where you are allowed to travel•Will have a very hard time finding a job

Physics Students Accept Wells Fargo GrantBy AuBrie KuyKendAll & lily HAwleyReporters

photo by April van Buren // Senior Physics students (from back left) Alejandro Griego and Onesimo Archuleta, Wells Fargo representative Lisa Riley, teacher Sabrina Maxwell, and seniors Pauline Luhman, (front row from left) Morgan Mascarenas, Ben Sandoval, Jr., Alexandria Terrazas and Ashley-Ann Martinez pose with a prop check from Wells Fargo. The school accepted an actual check of $3,000 for new science equipment and Wells Fargo distributed a total of $43,434 total to New Mexico educators in downtown Albuquerque on Wednesday, Nov. 30. Maxwell said the equipment is for Physical Science and Physics.

Members of the Mesa Vista Physics class and teacher Sa-brina Maxwell accepted a check for $3,000 from Wells Fargo, partnered with the Golden Apple Foundation, on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at the downtown Albuquerque Wells Fargo branch. Maxwell made a field trip out of the event, first taking the group of seniors to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, before heading to the Wells Fargo branch to accept the check. “It was really exciting receiv-ing the grant and holding the huge check. I’m really looking forward to using the new equipment that will be bought with this money,” senior Physics student Morgan Mascare-

nas said. Wells Fargo awarded the Teacher Grant to 33 public school teachers in 23 New Mexican communities. The grants went to 11 elementary schools, eight middle schools and four high schools, including Mesa Vista. The grant allotted to Mesa Vista will go to buying Spectrum Tubes, Spectrum Tube Power Sup-plies, Standard Spectrometers and Quantitative Analysis Spectro-scopes. The Spectrometers will al-low Physical Science students to take a look at light and what col-ors it is made up of. The Physics students can then take the Spectro-scopes to measure the distance be-tween electron orbits for light wave lengths. “These kids are the inspiration for the proposal and the true recipient of this grant,” Maxwell said.

Animals Struggle to Survive, Centers Help

Not only are wild animals strug-gling to adapt to the global climate changes, but they also have to deal with mankind destroying their environments. Organizations like the Albuquerque Zoo and the Espanola Wildlife Center are do-ing all they can for these creatures.        “They’re losing their homes in the wild. This is our way of trying to educate the public,” ABQ BioPark Zoo manager Lynn Tupa said. “So many animals are going extinct. It’s different from seeing an animal in a picture of a magazine than in real life.”     There are more than 2,000 animals at the Albuquerque Zoo. In addition to the customary animals like lions, elephants and giraffes, the zoo is also home to some of the rarest species in the world, Tupa said. For example, there are only about 3,500-7,000 snow leopards left in the wild, according to snowleopard.org. The Albuquerque Zoo has set up a Species Survival Plan® (SSP) for snow leopards, according to the official Albuquerque city web site, and the zoo even celebrated the birth their of twin snow leopards in July.      The Espanola Wildlife Center is also trying to help the cause. The center gets about 1,000 types of animals all year. They re-lease about 68 percent of the animals back into the wild, Katherine Ea-gleson said, but there are 37 animals that call the center ‘home’ and are also part of the Center’s education program. The staff uses the animals to talk to kids and adults about the importance of conserva-tion and recycling.       “Keeping wild animals that are healthy enough to be in the wild is unethical,” Executive Director of the Wildlife Center Katherine Eagleson said, “But if people

don’t care about the animals, it’s essential for us to protect the animals.”     Both the Es-panola Wildlife Center and the A l b u q u e rq u e Zoo support conservation ef-forts.        “We’re not doing enough of it. They’re cut-ting our fund-ing, so it limits a lot of what the zoo can do,” Tupa said.        Addition-ally, people can be more aware of the business practices of ma-jor companies like Hershey’s and Mars, for example. In Sumatra, the islands of Bor-neo and Indonesia, orangutans’ habitats are being cut down to create palm oil

plantations. Palm oil is an ingredient in some chocolate companies’ recipes, according to www.change.org. YUM! Brand restau-rants, which include Pizza Hut, Taco Bell,

KFC and more, are also guilty of using palm oil obtained from deforested land. Consumers can read the labels and avoid buying products with Palm Oil as an in-gredient. Also, most fast food places have the ingredients listed online. There is much on the Internet about conservation.  For example, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is the world’s lead-ing conservation organization. It’s been

around since 1961, and is marking its fiftieth anniversary this year. The WWF’s web site provides information about dif-ferent kinds of endangered animals and how to help them. There is a program where people can pick out an endan-gered species to adopt, like a river otter for example. Participants get a certificate of purchase and a plush toy or picture of their adopted animal with the adoption, along with a gift bag and box, depending on the amount spent (ranges $25-100). The group’s current goal is to conserve nineteen of the world’s most important natural places by 2020, according to the official web site www.panda.org.     “I like when people understand. Like when people come in with ignorance and you start talking to them and the light bulb goes off and they’re interested,” Joshua Love, Indianapolis Zoo Conser-vation Education Instructor said.

By AliciA dominguez Reporter

photo by Alicia Dominguez // Penguins at the Indianapolis zoo chill out in their exhibit. Conservation centers aide many breeds of this endangered bird so they can survive for future generations to admire. Penguins live in Antarctica and are preyed upon in the wild by sea lions and human pollutants. And as chicks, by some predatory birds.

The Spectacle FEATURES INSERT page 2 Dec. 1, 2011

— Lynn Tupa, ABQ BioPark Zoo Manager

They’re losing their homes in the wild. This is our way of trying to educate the public.“

”

Animals Struggle to Survive, Centers Help Water, Water Everywhere to DrinkBy AtHenA mArtinez Reporter

The Spectacle FEATURES INSERT page 3 Dec. 1, 2011

Despite the gossip year after year, the school’s water is safe to drink. “I don’t like the taste. It tastes like old pipes. I bring my own water,” math teacher Bernadette Galvez said. The school’s drinking water has chlorine in it, said Mesa Vista Head of Maintenance Joe Steven Martinez. Sometimes people can perceive the chemicals, but the flavor is not just the chlorine, it’s also minerals in the water. Minerals could be something simple such as salt or sulfur. A high mineral content can also cause that “awkward” taste in the water, science teacher Victor Jaramillo said. In addition to the taste, sometimes the water comes out discolored. This can be a result of water sitting in the pipes during the weekend, Martinez said. The water is safe to drink, he said, as the district tests the drinking water for copper and lead twice a year. In addition, there is an outside company that visits once a month to test for E. coli and Coliform, and to add disinfectant. On the drinking fountains, there is

some calcium and mineral buildup, which is why some of them don’t work, Jaramillo said. The pipes have never been replaced in the district. When asked if there is rust in the water lines, both Superintendant Randall Earwood and Martinez responded “Possibly,” and Martinez added “only in the older buildings.” “Not to my knowledge,” Martinez said. “The district is supposed to be replacing pipes soon, but I have no idea when.” Even though the pipes haven’t been replaced recently, the tank for drinking water storage has. In fact, most people don’t know that the drinking water at school is stored in the grey water tank behind the elementary school. Just this summer, Jaramillo’s science class actually tested the water from the water storage tank for phosphorus, pH and nitrates. Nitrates are generally contamination from organic matter such as leafs, weeds or even waste, and they show up from surface water phosphates used to clean the water. Too much phosphate or nitrate

can generally cause adverse affects to the digestive system, according to Martinez, but Jaramillo says neither have been of excess in his tests. “The phosphorus levels are low. The nitrates levels are low and the pH levels are 8.0, which means that the water is neutral,” Jaramillo said. The brown fence by the tech. building is around a “recirculating sand filter waste-water treatment facility,” which the district uses to clean the used water and convert it to grey water. The water is then used for subsurface irrigation to water the track field. “The waste water is also tested for nitrates and TKN, which is basically total nitrogen, to make sure we’re not polluting the ground,” Martinez said. Despite the questioned quality of the water some students are still brave enough to test it. “Yes, I do drink the water here at school, but I don’t think it tastes any different than normal water. It tastes like strawberries,” Eduardo Maes said.

photo by D’Angelo Padilla // The older tank used for storing the school’s drinking water sits behind the elementary playground. There is another water tank located near the Cafetorium. This summer, science teacher Victor Jaramillo’s students tested the water from the tank for phosphorus, pH and nitrates. “The phosphorus levels are low. The nitrates levels are low and the pH levels are 8.0, which means that the water is neutral,” Jaramillo said.

photo by D’Angelo Padilla // This water barrel is designed to collect water run-off from the buildings. The school “recycles” run-off water like the water collected in this barrel to water some parts of the campus. The district also tests groundwater to makes sure they are not polluting the water table.

The Spectacle FEATURES INSERT page 4 Dec. 1, 2011

By Chastidy trujillo

RepoRteR

Some memories just fade into the distance, but everyone has a moment or two in their life that is un-forgettable. Teachers and staff at Mesa Vista are no exception. “When I was five years old I was a little wobbly and learning to ride a bicycle not my size, and I hit a tumble weed and fell in all of the cacti. It was funny and embarrassing, but at the same time, it hurt because of all of the stick-ers,” secretary Sylvia Gurule said. Gurule isn’t the only one with childhood memories of embarrassment.

Counseling secretary Georgia Kuykend-all remembers messing up in front of her whole class during school one day. “When I was five, my teacher asked me to give a report in front of the class and I couldn’t say the word ‘oil,’” Kuyk-endall said. “It made me feel ter-rible because the teacher and all of the students laughed.” Even though Kuykendall had a rough moment it was nothing compared to coach Thomas Vigil’s embarrassment

from getting caught ditching school. “In the elev-enth grade at Mesa Vista, for morning practice, me and five friends left school to go and eat break-fast at the café and never came back. The school called my mom. She was really mad, and we got sus-pended for one day,”

Vigil said. “I am always reminded of it whenever I see those five friends. I also felt like I was setting a poor example for my family and my teammates.”

Vigil will not soon for-get this mistake he made more than a decade ago. History teacher Mo-nique Garcia also can’t forget a publicly embar-rassing moment. “My dad and son went

with me to Wal-Mart one day. I was reading the grocery list and, as I was walking toward the front door, I tripped and landed on the concrete. It was em-barrassing because not only was it front of my family, but also in front of some random people. I had a big old scrape on my knee and I was bleeding. As soon as I walked into the store I went to the band-aid aisle,” teacher Monique Garcia said. Even though Garcia is an adult, she can still remember that day because of her own son laughing at her. It’s often the reactions of others that makes people like Kuykendall remember what hap-pened in the past. “You never forget those people who laughed at you in school,” Kuykendall said.

Staff Share Embarrassing, Childhood Stories

When did you stop believing in Santa?

— 7th grader Charles Buezo-Diaz

(I was) nine or ten. I never told (my parents that) I knew.“

”

— Sophomore Damian Herrera

When I went to the mall and found out (Santa) was wearing a fake beard.“

”

— FreshmanKristin Maestas

When I saw my parents putting presents under the tree, I was surprised and shocked.

“ ”

—8th graderGabriella Gallegos

When I was in 4th grade. It was like, ‘Oh, he isn’t real.’“

”

drawing by Lily Hawley

— Counseling secretary Georgia Kuykendall

You never forget those people who laughed at you in school.“ ”