Danforth students experienced another successful year on this year's Avogadro Chemistry competition.   Congratulations to Jack L. for receiving an elemental tile for his score within the 92^nd percentile and to Varun P. for scoring within the 84^th percentile.  Honorable mention goes out to 5 more of our Danforth students; Evan B., Samya T., Jonah G-Y, Thomas L., and Ananya P. for scoring within the top 25^th percentile.

Congratulations are in order for Elysia who scored in the 93rd percentile on the Chem 13 chemistry competition and for Emily who scored in the 85th percentile.

Danforth had a stacked team for the competition this year. As a school we finished 12% higher than the Canadian average. Below are the four anchors of the team (Emily, Elysia, Sultan and Adam).

These four scored in the top 25th percentile. Well done  Danforth!

The award ceremony for the York University High School Biophysics contest was held on Friday June 15th at the Life Science Building at York. Danforth knew going in that we had some students in the top 5, but what we didn't know was that we took first and second place along with an honorable mention. Pictured below are Abiali B. (first place) and Ajwad K. (second place) with their certificates. Missing are Maya T. (second place with Ajwad) and Saskia R-S. and Annie D. (honorable mention).

After the award ceremony the students got a tour of some of the facilities at York including the observatory and the antimatter lab. Pictured below are Ajwad and Abiali in the lab.

Danforth is now 2 for 2 in this competition and we are looking forward to the next installment in two years time (unfortunately York does not have enough funds to run the competition annually).  Well done!

Students the grade nine MaST drama class attended a performance of "My Name is Asher Lev" adapted by Aaron Posner from the novel by Chaim Potok. The class additionally participated in three workshop sessions facilitated by two wonderful artist-educators from Studio 180, focusing on themes from the play: family, tradition, culture, faith, honesty and the search for identity.

During the workshops, in addition to a number of lively discussions, the student actors were challenged to take a stand on a continuum of ideas, respond in character, and role play to justify a variety of different viewpoints. Using the techniques of improvisation, hot seating, tableaux and mime, participants explored realistic and abstract expressions of the themes and concepts in the play. 

At the end of the sessions, the guest artists praised all of the students for their collectively strong active participation and collaboration, their willingness to take risks onstage and for the level of commitment and care paid to each activity they undertook. MaST Drama students your efforts continue to make DCTI proud!

On Sunday November 26 th , Anamika , Menna and Maeashah went to an all-day event at Ryerson
University where they hear from three different tech founders who shared how they came to
produce their businesses. They are pictured here with with Dr. Karam who is the inventor and president of Tactile Audio
Displays Inc. and a Senior Visiting Research fellow at Kings College London UK.

"One of the founders mentioned that in order to have a business you need know its market, cost,
what is being sold and how you would have to convince people to buy your product and know its
value. In order to do so you would need a great pitch. This was very useful because it benefits
me with the program/project I am currently working on (Zero To Startup)." Menna

"I would recommend events like this to anyone wanting to get inspiration for future projects, or
even just to see the different up and coming tech projects." Anamika

"I found the event to be useful because it gave me a chance to network and speak with the creators. Talking with Dr.Karam was really inspiring and she encouraged us to contact her if we ever need her help. This also helped me start thinking about sci tech projects and overall I really enjoyed it and it was a very informative" Maeashah

The YOUth Conference, organized by the WISE (women in science and engineering) group was a really beneficial event. What I found to be the most useful to me was the panel with the undergraduate students who advised that "life is not a spectator sport", we must get involved. They encouraged us to definitely talk to our professors and search for lab opportunities, to not be picky at first about which labs we get, but to just gain transferrable skills, which we can apply later on. (I will definitely look into that now during my time at university.) Their advice was very practical and applicable.

On Wed/ October 18 at lunch, students and teachers were invited to room A76 to view and vote for their favorite roller coasters built by the Grade 12 Engineering Design class. There were nine different roller coasters and the winning coasters - popularity and technical merit -  were Wario and Crime Scene which feature loops, funnels, switchbacks within great themes. Wario was built by Evan, Maisha and Sam P. and Crime scene was built by Jack and Susheen. The video was made by Maria and Farhan.