aptampa

Video Games Do Not Cause Young People to Act Violently By Dameer Gay

Video games are not the reason that your children are acting violently. According to an article by Brad J. Bushman, a professor of psychology and communication at Ohio State University, he states that people who think deeply about the game are more violent than people who play the game without any thought. I believe that this is a false accusation and his experiment was merely coincidence. This topic matters to me because my Mom does this to me all of the time. She blames my behavior of talking back to her on video games. So, I would like to refute her claims.

My first reason for this is personal experience. After I play a video game like Borderlands or GTA 5, I do not feel violent in any way after 24 hours. In fact, I feel calmer than ever knowing I good, deep session of video games. The only violence I feel when I play video games is when I lose. But even then, the rage is only for a second. My anonymous friends also do not feel any rage after 24 hours. We play together and get into very serious gaming sessions. After many hours of playing, the only thing we feel is contempt from having such a good gaming session.

In conclusion, video games have no correlation to causing young people to act violently. I’ve read many articles to support my claims. There have also been many scientific research studies that show no correlation between violence and video games. You can look at articles from The New York Times, CNN, and CBS for more information. Some example articles are, “Video Games Aren’t Why shootings Happen. Politicians Still Blame Them.”, and “Video games unlikely to cause real world violence , experts say”.

Why Teddy Bridgewater is my Role Model By Tyler Harper

Teddy Bridgewater is my role model because he went to Louisville College and that’s were Lamar Jackson went. Lamar Jackson is a quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens and his number is 8. Teddy Bridgewater is my 4th favorite football player. Here is a little background information on my role model. Teddy Bridgewater was born on November 10,1992 in Miami,FL. Teddy Bridgewater’s parents are Teddy Bridgewater Sr. the father and his mother is Rose Murphy.

Teddy Bridgewater went to Louisville College which is located is located in Louisiana.Teddy Bridgewater is a quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. Teddy’s height is 6’2” and his weight is 215 lbs. Teddy Bridgewater signed a one year 7.2 million dollar contract with the NFL Vikings. Bridgewater missed the 2016 season after a career threatening knee injury.

On September 28, 2014, Bridgewater made his first NFL start against the Atlanta Falcons and won the game. He won the game because 317 passing yards scored his first NFL touchdown on a 13-yard rush. During week 2, he replaced Drew Brees, who left with a right thumb injury.

Head coach Mike Zimmer said that Bridgewater “has along way to go”even after he is fully healed. I think that people should like Teddy Bridgewater because even if the offense of line does not block he still manages to throw the football to the wide receiver and still gets a touchdown. Another reason why Teddy is a great football player because when other players taunt and annoy him but he keeps his composure and just lets them win the argument. Teddy is the representation of a good leader for the team.

The Untold Secret of October! By Hezekiah Davis

We all know October as the creepy month, the month of Halloween, or the weirdest month of them all but have you heard of the untold secret of October. It turns out October is Pizza Month! I bet you love pizza. Well, there’s not only a day of pizza, February 9, but there’s a whole month for it. I’m here to tell you the secrets of October, the good pizza, the creepy pizza, and even the bad pizza! While reading this I hope others begin to realize the importance of Pizza Month and how much it’s overlooked.

The Horror of Pizza Month

There are some cons to celebrating Pizza Month. You might think pizza month will be the best month and there will be no complications to this, well, that’s where you’re wrong! Pizza companies such as Dominos or Pizza Hut are practically competing on selling pizza. They are planning to have self driving cars, drones, and even robots to sell pizza. They’re trying to get access to order from Alexa Echo Dot or to even text to order. This may be convenient, but it’s kinda a problem to rely on electronics for everything. Especially the little stuff such as delivering, racing and other stuff! You can make pizza spooky, but there’s a difference between spooky and dangerous. Celebrating Pizza Month means that there might be pizza delivery related accidents. As technology advances, so will the competition of selling pizza.

The Magnificence of Pizza Month

Don’t get me wrong, there’s benefits to October as Pizza Month. Even though Pizza Month is overlooked, there are lots of benefits to it, despite the negatives to it. With Pizza Month places like Pizza Hut, and Cici’s, they’re willing to give discounts or even good deals. For example, California Pizza Kitchen gives out big discounts and are planning to try and give out 10,000 free pizzas for FREE. If you’re in California and you love pizza, go to Grubhub.com and claim your free pie. No taxes or driving fees will be charged. That’s not all! There’s much more benefits to October as Pizza Month and it shouldn’t be overlooked any more. It’s just as good of a holiday as Halloween. When you’re getting free pizza, that can be donated to the homeless or the hungry. With the discounts, these pies can be more affordable for the less fortunate. This may seem like nothing now, but later on this can be a buffet of different types of pizza for people who are starving, people who will eat anything they can find to survive. When Pizza Month is recognized, the hungry can be fed and people can get free meals.

Pizza Month is Amazing!

Book Review By Isaiah Booquet

undefined

The Amulet Series By Kazu Kibuishi is amazing. I’ve read The Stonekeeper,The Stonekeeper’s Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council,Prince of Elves, and Escape from Lucien so you can trust me and my review. This book review is only going to be on Book One. The Stonekeeper starts off with a tragedy. The family in the story is driving and the main character Emily and her parents are blinded by a truck’s headlights. They bust through the metal fence and drive off the side of a cliff. Emily and her mother get out but the father is stuck and can’t get out. The dad tells the mom to take care of Emily and the car falls off the cliff. A few years later the family moves into their great grandparents’ house and they start cleaning when Emily finds a room with a weird book and strange inventions. In the house there is also a shadow monster that stalks Emily and her family. Emily’s little brother Navin comes with the mother and they talk about the mysterious room. After the mom leaves, Emily finds a necklace, which is actually an amulet and an important part of the story. Navin asks to hold the amulet but Emily says no. They go back down the stairs and then the amulet stone starts speaking to Emily it tells her that her mom is in danger. Remember when I told you there was a shadow monster, yeah that’s the danger. That is all I’m going to tell you because I don’t want to spoil the ending. And if you were wondering why I would recommend this book, it is because it is like a comic book but not exactly. I really enjoyed this graphic novel because it has more pictures and keep me interested in the story. I believe I relate to the main character “Emily” because she is brave and stays calm in stressful situations. I believe other middle schools students can relate to Emily because her story is adventurous and people can inspire people to discover new things and face the unknown.

Fifth Grade Field Trip to Crystal Springs By Antez Crossman and Cory Dupree

The fifth grade Class at Academy Prep went to Crystal Springs on September 7th 2019.

Crystal Springs is a 530-acre sanctuary devoted to environmental education and dedicated to the preservation of Florida’s natural environment, Crystal Springs Preserve features a wealth of wilderness experiences for visitors.

Within the property is Crystal Springs, there is a spring system, discharging 30 million gallons of water per day. Everyone in Tampa gets their water from the Spring. The spring water is very clean but goes through many different cleaning processes until it gets to our homes.

My name is Cory Dupree and I am in 5th grade. I was fortunate enough to be able to GeoCache with my friends during this field trip. Geocaching is hunting for and finding a hidden object by using a GPS and plugging in coordinates using longitude and latitude. I also got to swim in the very cold spring. There I saw grasshoppers, birds, tadpoles, and different kinds of lizards.

In the spring I saw lots of rocks, bugs and a huge hole in the ground where the water comes from. After we finished our activities we got to eat pizza, brownies, and soda.

My name is Antez Crossman and I am in 5th grade. My experience at Crystal springs was wild. I saw a turkey and a flat fish. That was fun! Coach Byrnes and Ms. Wyluda swam with us in the springs.

The bus ride was fun because we listened to music and I talked about Yu-Gi-Oh with my friend David and Ms.Wyluda knew what Yu-Gi-Oh was. That was the best part, it was nice to talk about Yu-Gi-Oh. There is something called an aquifer that makes bubbles. The water was freezing cold and I was scared at first to swim to in spring because I had never done that before. I was also a little scared of the animals and fish that might have been swimming underneath me. I got to swim with a very nice lady. She helped me overcome my fear. The lady that help me overcome my fear of swimming was very kind for doing that.

Overall this trip was a lot of fun and I got to make awesome memories. If you get to go on this trip you should bring a bodysuit because the water is cold!

Guidance By Nevaeh Hargrove

Ms. Malone is the guidance counselor at Academy Prep Center of Tampa. She is one of the most helpful people to many students and helps people cope with problems using a variety of methods. Neveah Hargrove, an editor for the digital newspaper, interviewed students on campus about their experience with Ms. Malone and recorded their responses. She asked students to name their favorite method that Ms. Malone used to help them cope with their emotions. Neveah also asked what Ms. Malone would do to help them feel better and calm down. All the students interviewed had very good answers to the questions that were being asked.

London Ponder is one of the students that has benefitted from speaking to Ms. Malone. London struggled to deal with rudeness from her other classmates and she states “Ms.Malone tells me don’t listen to the hate and be my own person because the hate should not hold you down it should make you wanna do better.” London said her story should inspire others, “to do as Ms.Malone says because it will make you feel better and give you the confidence that you need.” Also, this shows that Ms.Malone really cares about the student body and is willing to help them with any problem that may come their way. Jalicia Jackson is another student who was interviewed. She says that Ms. Malone gives her good ways to take her mind off things and cope with emotions.

Ms. Malone’s methods have given the students guidance on how to cope with their problems and it shows that the students really appreciate Ms. Malone for all the work that she has done.

Neveah stated, “I appreciate Ms. Malone because even though I don’t go to her a lot she can still help me in many ways without begin in her office, it can be by the court just giving me inspiration words of wisdom or in the lunchroom telling me to staying out of silent lunch and keep doing what I do.”

“Empathetic Encouragers” By Jada Wilson and Aryanna Gregory

In respect of Hispanic Heritage month, “Hola Amigos!”

We’re back with another edition of the Empathic Encouragers. This week, Jada and Aryanna, picked one student from each grade in every class to interview so these students could give their opinions on who motivated or helped them this week. Thank you to Christopher Moliere and Naleishka Vargas from eighth grade, Darnell Hunter and Tristan Spotford from seventh grade, Jaron Gay and Nancy Curi-olido from sixth grade, and Eduardo Suarez-Garcia and Kelis Brown from fifth grade.

Each student has been asked the following questions: Which teacher has helped you this week? How has this deed affected your mood? On a scale from one to ten how much has this teacher helped Academy Prep Center of Tampa? While being asked these questions, the students were recorded with voice memos on our iPads. All of the teachers that were nominated are fantastic, and even if a faculty member was not mentioned, they still do a lot to make Academy Prep Center of Tampa a better place.

In this week’s edition Mr. Matesich, Mr. Hernandez, Ms. Ragg, and Ms. Vass were nominated to be highlighted, but one teacher got mentioned the most and that teacher was Ms. Ragg! Tristan Spotford, Nancy Curi-Olivo, and Kelis Brown nominated Ms. Ragg as the highlight of this week’s edition of our digital newspaper. These students decided on Ms. Ragg because she uses her warm heart and kind gestures to help students when they are having a bad day. When asked why she chose Ms. Ragg, Tristan Spotford stated, “Because she’s always asking people what’s going on in their lives.” When we asked Nancy Curi-Olivo she stated, “Because um… when I’m mad, angry, she’s always there to pull me out and she also has a quiet area for me to put my head down.” Lastly, when we asked Kelis Brown she stated, “She… um… made me happy by bringing up my grade.” Overall, Ms. Ragg has helped all of these students during times where they had things going on in their personal lives, so on behalf of the entire student body, thank you Ms. Ragg and congratulations on your nomination.

Another special shout-out to all the teachers mentioned that has better helped our community and the students involved with it. We believe that every nominee is special so in honor of them we would like to add specific features of other students. When asked, “what teacher has helped you this week or went out of their way to help you,” Darnell answered, “Mr.Matesich.” While questioning Christopher, we asked, “On a scale from one to ten how much has Mr. Matesich helped Academy Prep,” he said “9”. When we asked Naleishka how Mr. Hernandez has helped her, she said, “He would have taken points off my assignment but he gave me a second chance.” “When asked how much Mr. Hernandez has helped Academy Prep,” he said, ”8.” Lastly, “when asked how Ms. Vass has helped Eduardo,” he said, “She told me I can come back for extra help.”

In addition we update our digital newspaper every two weeks. So if you want to nominate a faculty or staff member that has helped you in that two week time frame come visit Jada Wilson and/or Aryanna Gregory at lunch time. We would like to say we thank all students and faculty that helped to make this article possible.

Signing off, Jada and Aryanna

Technology in School By Nyla Veal

My name is Nyla Veal and I am writing an article about opinions on technology in schools. This is important to me because it lets me know as a student how the teachers and faculty feel about the technology we use today. Eighth graders at Academy Prep get the privilege of having iPads and I want opinions on the way in which technology improves learning methods.

For the school newspaper, I wanted to interview an adult to find out their opinion on technology. This will not be an interview to debate, disrespect authority or disagree with their opinion on technology, but more so to inform the people about the benefits of technology.

My article in this newspaper is important because it will help students become more aware of the benefits of technology in schools. Our generation has access to a lot of new and improved technology. One example of the advances of technology in the classroom is creation of our Digital Newspaper enrichment.

This week I was interviewed Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster on her opinion on the use of technology in school. When I sat down with Ms.Gutierrez-Brewster I started by asking her how long she had been teaching at Academy Prep.

Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster: “I have been working at Academy prep since 2006. I was a teacher here from June 2006 until May of 2011 and then June 2011 until now, since I’ve been in an administrative role.”

Nyla: When do you believe technology is being used appropriately in school?

Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster: “Good question. When it’s work-focused so if you have a math problem that needs a certain kind of math program. Another example is if you need to listen to a certain useful piece of music to determine what kind of scale it is, like the difference between a sharp scale or a minor scale or a major scale. Gosh, there’s so many, so many different times when it’s appropriate to use for school.”

Nyla: How do you value technology?

Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster: I value it greatly as a tool. Just like a hammer is a tool. When we invented it hundreds, thousands of years ago. We as humans said, “Awesome, this hammer right here is going to help me put this nail in faster than before. Let me invent this tool to make it easier on me and more effective.”

Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster: The internet can be used to connect people and make people feel good and immediately connect with another person. But then there’s the opposite side of a tool that can be used for hurting people. And that’s where I value technology. But I still have a sense of trepidation with technology because of its potential for using it. And that all depends on the user.”

Nyla: Have you seen technology change during your time working at Academy Prep?

Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster: “Yes, yes, yes. When I was first teaching here, we didn’t even have smart boards. We had the whiteboards. That was the extent of technology. We had computers, the old school desktops. We did things like grading on there and document formatting. Then they started incorporating smart boards and that was cool because it was the first time my students would go up and there was this thing called daily grammar practice. It was a CD with, you know, do you know what a CD is? *laugh*

So you would put the CD into the computer and it would run this program where the students would go up to the screen and they would underline what the complete predicate and the complete subject. It would circle all the things the students circled and it was interactive. So then afterwards it would show their answers and then you could program cool things on the smart board.

Nyla: Has the advancement of technology help better a student’s education?

Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster: “I think the advancements definitely challenges students in a new way to think and connect in a way that we never had to do as kids ourselves. Anytime students are presented with something new, I think that makes them stronger academically.

A special thank you to Ms. Gutierrez-Brewster for making this possible!

Welcome to Academy Prep! By Isaiah Booquet

The Academy Prep students are getting started with the 2019 school year. I am in my first year at Academy Prep and one of my favorite things about going to school here is our enrichment program. We have many enrichments like Flag Football for girls and boys, Digital Newspaper, Band, Cooking and so much more! Some of the students are really happy when they get to pick their enrichment. I am glad I got to be in Digital Newspaper because writing about things I enjoy is great!

I am in three different enrichments, they are Digital Newspaper, Organic Gardening, and Friday Fun Chess. And so far, I have already learned lessons about chess and increased my gardening knowledge. In Chess, I learned that the more you play and get better you will learn to make good decisions in life. Also in Organic Gardening I’m learning how to plant fruits and flowers. In these enrichments, I’m learning how to work hard to achieve different goals. In Digital Newspaper, I’m learning the skills of a professional journalist and how to make interesting stories. I’m glad I go to this school because at my old schools I would’ve never got enrichments or life lessons. Also I’m really excited of what I’m going to learn this year in my enrichments. In conclusion, this year is turning out great already and im really excited and ready for what it will bring!

“Empathetic Encouragers” By Jada Wilson and Aryanna Gregory

In this week’s edition of the Digital Newspaper at Academy Prep Center of Tampa, students from each grade were interviewed so that a teacher could be highlighted for their good deeds this week. Many thanks to Jacqueline Salgado and Tracy Calloway from eighth grade, Maricia Akins and Messiah Williams from seventh grade, Da’zorah Pinckney and Henry Crockett from sixth grade, and Rihanna Debose and Kyle Jackson-Baldivia from fifth grade.

Each student has been asked the following questions: Which teacher has helped you this week? How has this deed affected your mood? On a scale from one to ten how much has this teacher helped Academy Prep Center of Tampa? While being asked these questions, the students were recorded with voice memos on student iPads. All of the teachers that were mentioned are fantastic and even if a faculty member was not mentioned they still do a lot to make Academy Prep Center of Tampa a better place.

In this week’s edition Ms. Dufficy, Ms. Denis, Mr. Moore, Ms. Ragg, Ms. Fisher, and Mr. Sutter were nominated to be highlighted but one teacher got mentioned the most and that teacher was Ms. Dufficy.

Tracy Calloway, Messiah Williams, and Henry Crockett nominated Ms. Dufficy as the highlight of this week’s edition of our digital newspaper. These students decided Ms. Dufficy has helped them improve in her math class and get better grades in the future on her tests. When asked how Ms. Dufficy helped Tracy stated, “Cause everybody was gonna fail her test if she did not help us.” When Messiah was asked he stated, “Because she doesn’t just go out of her way to help me she goes out of her way to help anybody who needs help.” Finally, when Henry was asked he stated, “ The teacher that has helped me this week was Ms. Dufficy with math cause …I had, I was messing up the questions in tests.” Overall, all of these students have become more successful in math thanks to the help of Ms. Dufficy, so on behalf of the entire student body THANK YOU Ms. Dufficy and congratulations on your nomination.

Although only one teacher could be chosen we would like to say we appreciate all teachers that help our peers and other students around the campus. Comments made by other students will also be featured. When asked, “Is this teacher worthy of a special highlight in this week’s edition of digital newspaper,” Jacqueline answered, “Yes… this teacher is worthy… ‘cause in my opinion I think she doesn’t give… she’s ‘kinda… um underrated in the school and she deserves a lot more.” When asked, “what teacher has helped you this week or went out of their way to help you,” Maricia answered, “Mr. Moore because he let me turn in a late assignment and it was due the day before.” When asked, “How has Ms.Ragg’s deed affected your mood,” Da’zorah answered, “Well it makes me more happier than I really am.” When asked, “On a scale from one to ten how much has Ms. Fisher impacted Academy Prep Center of Tampa,” Rihanna answered, “ A Nine.”

Digital newspaper will be updated every two weeks. If you want to nominate a faculty or staff member that has helped you, please come visit Jada Wilson and Aryanna Gregory at lunch time. We would like to say we thank all students and faculty that helped to make this first edition possible.

Signing off, Jada and Aryanna