Day 9: December News Rundown

Disney Trip Review

By Riddima Pandey, Staff Reporter

For the first time in years, 319 students boarded a plane and flew to Disney World. The trip cost $1600 per person, and the entire music department had the opportunity to go to Orlando, Florida’s Walt Disney World. Now they are back from their five-day trip and described their experience.

Rufei Tang, a freshman in the symphony orchestra, shares her experience at the instrumental workshop, where they got to meet professional musicians. They recorded themselves playing and put their music into an actual movie.

“When I first locked into the workshop, I didn’t know what was going on, until I met the Disney professionals and we got to record with them. It was a really cool experience,” Tang said. “And it was really surprising when I got to see the results.”

On the other hand, the concert choir performs at Disney Springs. Senior and concert choir senior Cathryn Cheetham describes the experience.

“We did a performance in Disney Springs. We had practiced three songs beforehand, to perform there, and it was nice. It was an outdoor-like auditorium in the shopping center,” Cheetham said.

Besides performing in Florida, the students were able to visit the park and experience the wonders of Disney World. Tang describes the park and her favorite part about the trip.

“My favorite part was the Magic Kingdom,” she said. “Magic Kingdom has the really pretty Cinderella’s castle that I’ve always wanted to go to since I was really young.”

Cheetham’s favorite part about the trip was the weather. It was very warm in Florida, and it felt strange to her because it felt unusual for it to be so hot.

“I kept forgetting that it was December because it was so warm,” Cheetham said, “And especially because Florida doesn’t really look that much different than Pennsylvania when you’re actually there. So it was kind of disorienting.” 

 

 

Canned Food Drive Reflection

By Alexa Willrich, Staff Reporter

This year’s canned food drive brought in over 6,000 cans, 1,000 over the original goal. Dr. Wood’s homeroom, which won the drive,collected the 1,200 cans. They helped the 11th grade donate the most amount of cans with 3,000 donated. Encouraging students to bring in cans is one of the hardest parts of the canned food drive, according to Daniel Richard, student council president.

“Many people think that if I bring in five cans, it won’t do much. But even five cans is truly a lot,” Richard said. 

As a way to encourage students, the homeroom in each grade with the highest number of cans donated was given a donut party. The homeroom with the highest number of cans overall won breakfast with Dr. Boyle and their picture framed in the atrium. 

Conestoga donates their cans to the Great Valley Food Cupboard, which helps spread the cans to those who cannot access food. The canned food drive touches close to many people’s hearts in the community.

“I think it is a good thing for us to give back to the community and good for us to realize that to improve ourselves we need to give back to the people around us,” Richard said.

 

Science Olympiad competes at inter-school competition

From forensic criminology to the bird classification of ornithology, students from Conestoga’s Science Olympiad team prepared and performed at the  long-anticipated inter-school competition. Battle of Valley Forge is an annual, Conestoga-held Science Olympiad competition among schools in the area. Having missed the last two years of the competition due to COVID-19, the team recognizes the importance of this event. 

 

Senior Evelyn Yu, co-captain of the team, actively coordinated with the club advisors Scott Best and Derrick Wood with team logistics and enjoys the multiple rewards this event brings.

 

“Competing together and really working to make one another better to elevate the group as a whole has really helped us come closer together,” Yu said. 

 

Aside from ’Stoga Science Olympiad tradition, the competition holds value for the newer additions to the team. Senior Niru Vijayakrishnan has been an active member of Science Olympiad since middle school and has competed in Build Events since freshman year. 

 

“Battle of Valley Forge not only shows new members how challenging Science Olympiad can be, but also how fun and rewarding it really is,” Vijayakrishnan said. 

 

With a total of 41 high school teams, Battle of Valley forge set a strong precedent for the future competitions the team will compete in this year and has sparked camaraderie within the team.