Going in Circles

By Cody (grade 7)

From The Western times to the Modern times Sisters has been in Oregon for over a century but now has to deal with the issues of cars and traffic. For a short while, Sisters had traffic lights installed at the corner of Barklay road and Highway 20, but they then were taken down. Since there have been more traffic accidents. Sisters decided that they should put in a roundabout to make it so then there wouldn’t be that many accidents. There isn’t that much information on why they decided on a roundabout, but here is some information and people's thoughts on the roundabout.

Photo by Jim Cornelius, The Nugget News

The roundabout is being constructed from 7am to 7pm by knife river. It will be close to Bi-Mart and Best Western. Right now they are blocking off Barklay road, so they can put their supplies there. They have also had to keep laying de-icer on the road because it has been icey. There is only one other roundabout in sisters, and this roundabout on the main road/highway will probably look similar the one other roundabout.

There are mixed feelings about the roundabout in Sisters some students like it and some hate it. This is what people think on the roundabout being built in Sisters. The main reason that people like it is because it can cause less accidents to happen there. It also can use no electricity to to work unlike traffic lights. Athan said “I would either have a roundabout there or some street lights there because people wait there for ten mins for people to go or stop.”

There are also students who hate it because it could destroy wildlife,cause more accidents, and make it slower to get in and out of Sisters. Ilya said “I don't think we need it because it's going to destroy more wildlife in sisters and it will soon close off the road making people take more time to do things.” The roundabout will be very odd but people just will have to wait and see.

Sisters Underwater

By Ilya (grade 7)

Whychus Creek Flooding

photo by Sue Stafford from http://www.nuggetnews.com/

main.asp?SectionID=5&SubSectionID=5&ArticleID=25704

Sisters, Oregon is faced with a dangerous situation, flooding. Residents are wondering what will happen when Whychus floods. What causes flooding, some people may ask. The answer is when lots of water goes into a river and causes that river to go over its banks. In sisters this spring, the snow melting and the rain will pour into the Whychus possibly causing it to flood.

Sisters residents are meeting and figuring out ways to survive the possible flood. One person was writing down phone numbers so they could call people in the event of a flood and make sure they are O.K. Some residents looked at a map of the flood plane and said it was very helpful to know if they were safe, there were also computers open to sites about flooding. A fun fact is that in 1996 there was a flood that wiped out Highway 20.   

There are some things people can do to prevent lots of damage due to a flood. One obvious thing is move away from the flood zone, but there are many more. People could create barriers and mark houses as shelters. People could try draining water from the Whychus. One way that would work well is remove snow, but the water of the flood could come from the peaks of the mountain. The flooding in Sisters is a scary thing to think about and is possible, but if we take extra precautions we will be fine.

For more information, check out this video from our local tv station, ktvz.com.

February is Black History Monthy

by Justin (grade 5)

Every February, we celebrate African-American History Month to remind ourselves of the achievements of hard working African-Americans who wanted freedom more than anything. Many African-Americans had ideas about being a civil rights activists and here are just three of the most famous ones and one who was not planning to be an activist, but is remembered as one.

Probably the first person to pop into people's heads is Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr was born in 1929, he attended Georgia schools, but was segregated  from white kids just because he was African-American. After graduating from college, there were protesting everywhere for civil rights across the U.S.. King wanted to improve the protesting when they were protesting about civil rights. So to try to improve it, he gave his “ I have a dream” speech at Lincoln's Memorial at Washington D.C  in 1963. This speech as planned, improved the protesting and also stopped segregation in a lot of cities and states in the U.S. He also won a Nobel Peace Prize. Sadly, Martin was assassinated in 1968 by James Earl Ray, a criminal and a white supremacist protester.

But Martin Luther King Jr was not the only civil rights leader to be assassinated. Another civil rights activist was Malcolm X.

Malcolm X was born in 1925, nicknamed “Malcolm Little.” In 1946, Malcolm and his friend were convinced of burglary charges and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

After being released from prison, he became a key spokesman in the civil rights movement. In 1965, a group of men ganged up on him and killed him. Over 15,000 people attended his funeral.

But the most unlikely person to be famous and remembered was Rosa Parks, and it all started on a bus in Alabama in 1955. A bus driver asked for her to get out of her seat  for a white person, but she refused to, so they decided to arrest her. This caused outrage and the civil rights movement to be stronger.

Many achievements of African-Americans were for civil rights and freedom. But also, endurance and perseverance since they have been through a lot, like slavery and trials for crimes they did not do.

A question remains, why is this holiday so important?

First, African-Americans are a very important part in history for their influence and standing up for themselves. And second, their culture has endured many tragedies and it is a good to reflect on their strength and endurance each year.

Everyday today, African-Americans still face racism, but many grow stronger and endure from it.

Photo credits: 
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/history/martin-luther-king-jr/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/01/how-history-got-the-rosa-parks-story-wrong/?utm_term=.3ec3f44370cb

The Best February 14th Ever!

By Emily (grade 5)

This year, on Valentine’s day, everyone was SUPER excited. They couldn’t wait to hand out all their valentines, and tried to give them all out on the bus! All the valentines had a lot of thought put into them and everyone was very grateful. To celebrate Valentine’s day, we played a super fun game in morning meeting, called “Honey I Love You."

You had to walk over to someone and try to make them smile or laugh, by saying "honey, I love you." But if they smiled, they had to be in the middle. After a few rounds of that, everyone was bummed that we couldn’t play anymore, and we had to start class. However, everyone did get the chance to do something really fun in math class. We got to choose between various things to do, like these awesome connect-the-dot math sheets, origami, difficult math problems and cutting out paper hearts.

The lower graders made bags for everyone to put their valentines into, and they would leave them on their desks so people could come and drop them in. After an amazing recess, we went inside to Mr. B’s classroom. (Mr. Sharp teaches in there on Tuesdays and Thursdays.) He let us have one piece of our candy during snack time. Everyone took a while to finish theirs.

Shortly after, he assigned everyone to their journalism article. Now I’m writing about the amazing day we had on February 14th! Everyone struggled trying not to eat all their candy at once. (Some kids may have had another piece on the bus. But you didn’t hear that from me.)
Needless to say, everyone loved all their valentines and had a great time. We may not have had a big celebration, but it was still a very fun valentine’s day. I think everyone got lucky that we didn’t have to do our independent math problems that day, and we could choose some fun math-related activities to do instead. The game we played in morning meeting was also very fun, and I hope we play it again next year. Valentine’s day this year has been awesome; especially for my first year at Black Butte School. I hope next year isn’t any different! I love Valentine’s day.

Music Class

by Conner (grade 8)

 Music class is fun to experience, but not as much to write about. Still I’m going to try my best in this article. Our teacher, Benji Nagel teaches us with enthusiasm. Music class is every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. We are starting by learning the ukulele. Older students might progress to guitars.

I’ve learned that the ukulele was introduced to Hawaii in 1879 from Portuguese. It has 4 strings. A guitar can have 4-18 strings, though usually 6 strings. Guitars were a part of the European renaissance, though scholars disagree how it was introduced to Europe. I’m really glad we are starting out with 4 strings and not 18 strings!

We’ve started by learning basic chords like C, D, G, and F. Smoke on the Water is one of the songs we’ve practiced using the chords. I’m looking forward to practicing more. Writing this article wasn’t so bad, but still music class is much more fun.

Writing For You

by Cody (grade 7)

For over a year Black Butte School has been writing articles to learn how to get new writing skills. This program was introduced by Ms.Sharp last school year, and this year has been taken over by Mr.Sharp. The articles have been about what happens in the school year and events that happen in the world. The school's process of writing is  brainstorming, making an outline, making a rough draft, peer editing, then making our final draft which goes out to you.

For class time we are given a hour to work on our article and after we have a week to work on our final draft. To decide, each 4th grade and up student comes up with an idea and then is called out to choose which idea they want. When working on editing each student is grouped up with another student then looks over the article while filling out a forum. After that, they talk and go over what could be better with each other’s articles.

Some articles get published on our blog (like this one), and others get published in our newsletter. That's the Black Butte School's journalism process. We will keep doing this for years to come to deliver our thoughts on the news of our school to you.

Students working together in journalism class

A Blast at Hoodoo!

By Shane (grade 5)

It is snowing a lot this year.  That is good because we can ski and have fun. It covers the dirt, rocks and stumps.  If there is powder it is soft when we crash.  If there is not enough snow, Hoodoo can't open the runs. With lots of snow we can make snowpeople and have snowball fights.  Lots of snow makes skiing fun.

In order to ski you need a helmet, skies, jacket, boots, snow pants, extra layers, gloves, and goggles. Equipment keeps you safe, for example, the skies can pop off your boots if you crash, so you don’t go down with your skies.

Skiing is fun because we get to go really fast. Some of us get to go through the trees and that is really challenging.  We can jump up in the air which is scary, but lots of fun.  When I ski I am with my friends and it keeps me healthy.

Lunch time is when we refuel our bodies and take a big rest.  I like lunch so I can talk with my friends and share stories of skiing. Lunch time is a good time to change wet clothes into dry clean clothes, and go to the bathroom, because there are NO bathrooms on the mountain! It is really important to stay hydrated and drink lots of water too.

Know your limits on the slopes, so you don’t get hurt. If you're a beginner then stay on the beginner runs, don’t go on the black diamonds. Always ski with a friend, so if you do get hurt, they can go get help from ski patrol. Its is important to know skier etiquette, so you don’t hurt another skier. I researched about skier’s etiquette online and learned about it from an article on TeensHealth.org. Skiing is a blast, so stay safe and keep it a blast!