Volume 8

Excursion: Curling

On Friday, February 9th, AVA students went to the Curling Club in Green Bay to learn a new sport many of them had never experienced before. Students first learned how to slide on the ice, practiced throwing the stones, and learned how to sweep. They then learned the rules of the game, the various positions, and the different signals for how to throw the stone. Finally, the students competed against each other in teams of 4-5 for the glory of being curling champions.

Special Guest Podcast

Leo, a sophomore, is starting a podcast called “Special Guest’’, where he will be interviewing different students in AVA about their projects and interests. It will be in the form of question and answer, a friendly conversation. The pilot episode will be Leo introducing the podcast and after the pilot episode, he will start having guests. The podcast will come out once a week and uploaded to Spotify, Facebook, and in the Venture Voice. Currently, Leo is working on making a logo for the podcast.

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome project 

Raechelyn, a sophomore, is doing a project about Hypoplastic left heart syndrome where the left ventricle is under development. She is researching about this condition and the heart. Raechelyn will be reaching out to a cardiologist to talk about Hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She also will be making a model of the underdevelopment in the heart. 

Baseball Swing Analysis project

Charlie, a freshman, is doing a project analyzing his baseball swing.  He started his baseball project last year. Charlie took a video of his swing and found things he needed to improve on to make his swing as efficient as possible. At first, Charlie just took things that he could see and that were obvious. As he kept moving along and taking more and more videos of his swing, he started looking at high-level hitters like Bryce Harper, finding things they do well, and trying to replicate that. With winter time, Charlie has put a pause on the project until warm/spring weather.

 Charlie plans on buying a sensor that you put on the knob of the bat to track the bat speed, barrel angle, and other stats. On top of improving his swing this semester, he will look into the muscles used in baseball, and find the best ways to train those muscles. Charlie would also like to add the pitching part of baseball to the project this semester. He plans to contact one of his coaches, Ryan Fritz, to help him with this.

Upcoming Events

  • DI Regionals in Algoma Feb 24, 2024 @ Algoma High School
  • Band-O-Rama Mar 12, 2024  
  • Spring Break Mar 25 – 29, 2024

Student Spot

This volume’s featured student is…  Aiden Jorns

Aiden Jorns is a junior this year at Algoma Venture Academy. This year, he is exploring potential future careers. Earlier this year, he did a job shadow at Rocket Stadium with their graphic designer. In spring, he will also be doing a job shadow with a park ranger at the Department of Natural Resources in Fish Creek. We are excited to see Aiden continue to explore his passions and interests as he approaches his senior year!

World News

Australia: Severe weather batters the state of Victoria

Written by: BBC on Tuesday, February 12, 2024

Nearly half a million homes were left without power in the Australian state of Victoria after a storm knocked out parts of the network.

Videos posted online showed torrential rain and gale-force winds uprooting trees and blowing entire sheds away.

One dairy farmer was killed – authorities suspect he was struck by flying debris while on a tractor.

The wild weather also hampered efforts to fight massive bushfires in the state’s west.

A catastrophic fire weather warning had been issued in one region – Australia’s highest level of bushfire danger.

The state’s energy minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said Tuesday’s power blackout – which authorities warn could last for weeks – was one of the largest in Victoria’s history.

“At the peak, 529,000 were without power due to physical damage to power lines caused by extreme weather,” she said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The outages happened after a number of transmission towers collapsed in the storm – forcing a power station to shut down.

There was also widespread disruption to transport in Melbourne, with half of the city’s train lines being suspended.

Public Transport Victoria (PTV) said it had been forced to shut many lines down due to multiple reports of storm damage.

“We’ve got nothing,” a resident of Melbourne suburb Wantirna told 3AW radio, referring to mobile phone and electricity outages.

Severe weather warnings were issued by the Bureau of Meteorology but most of them were later cancelled.

In Victoria’s western Wimmera region, a catastrophic fire warning was issued on Tuesday after conditions there were said to be the worst since catastrophic wildfires four years ago. Nationally those blazes led to 480 deaths, destroyed 2,500 homes and burned 24 million hectares of land – an area the size of the UK.

Five firefighters suffered minor burns when the vehicle they were in was overtaken by fast-moving flames in the town of Pomonal.

“Obviously a very frightening experience for everybody involved,” Chris Hardiman, chief fire officer for Forest Fire Management Victoria, told public broadcaster ABC News.

Emma Kealy, an MP for the county of Lowan, said she had been told that as many as 30 properties had been lost in the local area.

On Wednesday authorities said the situation had started to ease due to cooler conditions, and the fire warning has since been downgraded.

Australia has already dealt with hundreds of fires, some of which have turned deadly, since summer officially began in December – although the fire season started well before that.

Last winter was the country’s warmest since records began more than 100 years ago, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. That was followed by its driest autumn.

The world’s top climate scientists have warned that a future full of worsening disasters, including storms and fires, is likely unless urgent action is taken to tackle climate change.

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