24-25 School Year Articles 

Happy 3rd Quarter Friends and Families!!

EXTINCTION🦕🦴

By Kaylee McBride 

We all have heard of the deforestation and pollution that has put many of our beloved animals on the brink of extinction and even pushed them over the edge. Many people think that habitat loss and pollution are getting better but it's not, it seems that people have forgotten that we are causing animals to go extinct and endangered such as the Orangutan which with all the palm oil plantations, disease, and deforestation has had a rapid decline in its population and are only expected to hold out for 50 years and even gorillas for many of the same reasons!

A big contribution to the fact that many of our animals are going extinct is that  wildfires In the Amazon rainforest and other places have been causing mass killing of native creatchers. These fires have caused mass destruction of trees and animals. It's recorded that a staggering 13.4 million Acres of the Amazon rainforest has been burned through August 2024, that's bigger than Denmark and Costa Rica. An outstanding number of 7 million vertebrates were estimated to have been killed by the wildfires as recorded in 2020.

But scientists have found new ways to reverse extinctions. Scientists have somehow found a way to create new versions of previously lost species such as wooly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers using back breeding, cloning, and genome editing. These tools that new technology has gifted Humanity will help us restore some of our previously lost species which although exciting, doesn't fix the problem we're currently having. So, how do we stop species from going extinct? That question has a different answer. Now while the extension of animals can't be tackled overnight, scientists and normal people have been doing what little they can for our big environment like, nurturing animals and hoping to grow the population in captivity and then soon release them into the wild which is called captive breeding. People are trying to protect the biodiverse areas and animals we have on our planet like rainforests and oceans, fish and bears by replanting trees and reducing fossil fuel use to limit global warming and by having hunting limits and touch restrictions, these are the small steps many people are taking to help preserve our Earth and although we are not fixing the problem as fast as we wish we could, we are helping it in the small way we can.

2024 Literary Magazine📰🎨

By Max Gregg

The 2024 Literary Magazine is officially in production and this year’s theme is Urban Legends. Once again heading the project is Ms. Cameron, in B105 along with the 2024 Editor in Chief Serena Morin. The Literary Magazine is a great place to get your art/writing out there, as all types of submissions are welcome. For writing submissions; poems, short stories, essays and articles are all welcome, and on the art side, both 2D and 3D submissions are welcome. 

Going behind the scenes, I have a wealth of experience with the project as I served as the editor in chief for 2 years. The Literary Magazine is completely student led, with NCHS students deciding on the theme, the formatting and which submissions get in (don’t worry, they always want more submissions). Advertising is also handled by students, who raise funding during the club fair and offer sponsorships for individual donators. If you donate to the Literary Magazine, you could get your name on the back cover! 

This year brings a new style to the Literary Magazine, as it no longer costs money. Preorders open in november, so get those orders in!

And for artists/authors, submitting your works has an added benefits, and the contests from last year are back and better than ever. With sections such as “best short story”, “best digital artwork” and others, the more submissions you enter, the greater your chance is to win gift cards and other prizes. 

So, if any of that sounds interesting to you, come on down to B105 for more information!

Back to Back Hurricanes☁️🌡️

By Max Gregg

Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm on October 10th, luckily decreasing from the Category 5 it was over the gulf of Mexico. It’s the second hurricane in as many weeks, the specter of Helene looming heavily over the resident of Florida, North Carolina and Georgia as they start to repair the damage it wrought. 

This uptick in dangerous storms has become a hotly debated topic among politicians, scientists and average citizens, but the answer is clear to anyone willing to look. Climate change. It’s a scary word to many, I can remember the panic I felt when I learned about the droughts in California, animals losing their habitats to the march of humanity’s progress. Of course, at that point we called it global warming, and while that is happening, climate change’s affects are much more diverse. 

One of the effect are ocean warming, which directly leads to these more intense storms. “Hurricanes are fueled by the heat energy of ocean water. As water evaporates from the tropical oceans, it rises and condenses. This change from water vapor to liquid water releases energy that powers hurricanes. More evaporated water vapor from warmer oceans provides that much more energy to supercharge hurricanes,” writes Peter Whiting in their article “How climate change is worsening hurricanes”. It’s a bleak thought, but one that feels ever prescient among the destruction that so many people have to face. These storms are only going to get worse, and the Tool song about California dropping off into the ocean seems more realistic everyday. 

Tomodachi Life Continued🎮

By Julia Urton

   The game Tomodachi Life came out April 18th 2013 in Japan, and on June 6th 2014 outside of Japan. There was a game that came out before it called Tomodachi Collection that came out in 2009, most people do not know about this game. It was only released in Japan. It is an older version of the game so it is much less polished, though many people who have managed to get their hands on the game say that it is great, and maybe even better than Tomodachi Life. 

     The regional differences is one of the coolest parts of the game even though you are not aware of it until seeing another person play it. The regions are North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and North Korea. The least is known about the North Korean version and it is very hard to find gameplay of it online. There are differences in dialog, mini games, and items. For example, in the North American version there is a mini game called football. It is not actually football, it consists of a table with a mini version of you, and of the tomodachi you are playing against. There is a referee that is a mini version of a random tomodachi on your island. The goal is to either push your opponent over or to push them out of bounds. You do this by rapidly tapping the bottom screen of you Ds. In the European version though, it is called wrestling and the football uniforms are changed to wrestling uniforms, and the football field is changed to a wrestling arena. The game is completely the same other than these cosmetic differences. 

    There is a compatibility tester in the game where you can put two tomodachis in to see if they would be romantically compatible. (If there is a minor or if the two you have put in is same-sex then it will test their friendship.) In the Japanese version the music is different. It has more of an elegant piano rather than the upbeat cartoony music. Speaking of compatibility, this game does not allow for same-sex couples. Many people complained about this and it was said that if there was another game, that would be added. There were earlier versions of the game where adults were allowed to date children, fortunately, this was quickly changed. There is an item called the Age-o-matic, which turns an underage tomodachi into an adult, and another called the kid-o-matic, which turns an adult tomodachi into a child. A tomodachi will request these items by saying “I wish I could be a kid again” or “I wish I was all grown up” if the tomodachis are both minors then they can date, but they cannot get married. If they want to get married, after the proposal they will prompt you to spay them both with the Age-o-matic and they will both become adults able to marry. If a tomodachi has been sprayed with the Kid-o-matic they will be able to date minors since the game now sees them as a minor as well, same goes for children sprayed with the Age-o-matic. This is definitely questionable.

     Married tomodachis can have children! A couple can have infinite children so long as there is enough apartment space. (max is 100 tomodachis) The way this works is a couple will randomly decide to have a baby. The child’s features are a mix of the couple’s features, never anything new. The child takes about under a (real life since this game uses real time) week to grow up. When that happens you are prompted to either move them into an apartment or have them travel the world. Having them travel the world means streetpass which was a popular feature of the Ds when it was very popular. If you passed by someone who was playing Tomodachi Life, your tomodachi would be able to travel to that island. You could get special items for this. Unfortunately, not many people in 2024 are walking around with a Ds, much less have it running with Tomodachi Life on it. The streetpass system for this game is pretty much obsolete for modern day. 

There is so much more to this cute little game, it deserves more attention.

Say Hello to Moon Two 🌚🌕

By Max Gregg  

   You might be confused on what I’m writing about but it’s true. Right now, our earth has two moons! The phenomenon that we’re experiencing is called a “mini moon” by scientists, wherein an asteroid briefly becomes entangled in earth’s orbit. Small enough to be invisible to the naked eye, our temporary visitor’s name is 2024 PT5. A… Scientific name to be sure, but it’s fair, as astronomers were the first to spot these mini moon. It is a cause for celebration though, as these events are notably rare in astronomy according to the Scientific American. 

“Four other mini moons have been confirmed and reported in the scientific literature: 1991 VG, 2022 NX1, 2006 RH120 and 2020 CD3,” Robert Lea writes in her article for the scientific american. Citing an article by Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, which elaborates on these “Near Earth Objects” can can occasionally get caught in our orbit. Some stay for only a few months before being picked up by our sun’s orbit again and some stay orbiting earth for years. 

PT5 is in the former category, as it’ll depart us in late November. But, don’t shed any tears, as astronomers predict that it might swing back around some time in 2055. So add a 30 inch telescope to your amazon wishlist and maybe you’ll get to see our temporary friend.

The Rapid Decline of Destiny 2 👎🕹️

By Elliot Jester 

    Over the years, Destiny 2 (made by Bungie) has been a game I come back to occasionally. I have played 322 hours on this game and spent $239.21 on myself and a friend over the past 3 years. What I’ve noticed is a community-wide complaint about how the quality of the game took a nosedive. With the release of Destiny 2: Lightfall released in February of 2023 was the most negatively reviewed expansion in Destiny’s history. Not only that but it was very expensive for the past expansions Bungie had released. When it came out if you were to buy just the expansion you would be spending $52.99 and you also had the option to buy it with extra perks such as in-game currency and a battlepass-styled system for much more; this expansion at its most expensive was $100.

Lightfall had its positives, the new subclass was introduced, strand. There was a lot of content but players were very dissatisfied with the combat. Destiny 2 is a combat game, and that is the most important aspect of it besides the story that has been woven over these two games. My main issue with this expansion is the majority of the gimmicks introduced for it. The suppression fields and tormentor enemy type have quickly become one of my least favorite things in this game. Not to mention certain fights in this game sometimes are straight-up a disaster with barely any downtime to breathe and focus on the boss. The final boss especially is guilty of this, and a majority of the Vex encounters feel as though the devs threw some of the more annoying members of that faction into an entire room (i.e. Hydras, Minotaurs, and Wyverns.) Lightfall has crossed the line between frustrating and challenging so hard that it made it difficult to play it all the way through.

This made a lot of old Destiny players stray away from the game. They felt Bungie didn’t care about their players as this expansion also had very low bug fixes and players were set to fend for themselves. This disappointment didn’t let up there as many players cited having huge connection issues and Destiny would go for days with servers being down with no warning or notices from Bungie. The player base felt like they were paying an extreme amount of money for a game that was borderline unplayable. I wish Bungie would think more of their players but with company-wide layoffs and AI controversies, I can’t imagine a world where Destiny 2 is a game that is fun and playable for more than 2 weeks at a time.

Tomodachi Life 🎮🫂

By Julia Urton

    The 3Ds is a fairly outdated handheld gaming device. They stopped selling them in 2020 so if you want one you will likely have to pay an outrageous price on eBay. Same for the games, though many Game Stops have small displays with used DS games in them. There is a specific, almost forgotten DS game called Tomodachi Life.

   Tomodachi Life is a game where you can make Miis, which are little characters that Nintendo lets you make. In this game your Miis are in an apartment building. They have 4 ‘categories’ of things that they want. The most common is just a regular problem pertaining to themself, like if they are hungry or want new clothes. The second is when they want to make a friend or if they have had an argument with another Mii. The third is if they are in love with another Mii, want to propose to their significant other, or want to have a baby with their spouse. The fourth is if they want to play a game, then there will be a mini game for you. This game is so entertaining. The Miis always have something silly to say and you get invested in the relationships and “drama”. There are regional differences in the game, so if you play it and then watch someone from the UK play it, you will see differences in items, dialogue, and other stuff. If you don’t get the chance to play it yourself, I recommend looking up someone playing it just to see the silliness. 

To Be Continued…

Sign up for AP testing! 📓📝

By Ray Fordyce 

This year we have many new people taking an AP class for the first time. However quite a few of you might be confused on how to sign up for AP exams and now is the last month to sign up. There are also almost no disadvantages to taking the AP exam as Anne Arundel County is paying for several AP exams this year. Plus this year your first FOUR AP tests are FREE! 

Now to sign up for the AP exam you’ll want to make a College Board account and ask your AP teacher for the class join code. Remember when making a College Board account you want to use your personal email. After you have the class on your AP classes page, you’ll want to go to the class and press sign up for the AP exam. With that you’ll also have the info on when your exam is. 

Let's all get 5’s on our test and see you next week. 

False Memories 🧠🤔

By Julia Urton 

Memories are a very delicate thing. Most people don’t realize how delicate they really are. Things can seem so certain in your mind, that you could have no doubts, but in reality, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Misinformation effect - incorporating misinformation into one’s memory of an event

The misinformation effect can often come into play when eyewitnesses are recalling a crime. Information can be skewed in their brain and make them think they saw something they didn’t or saw it in a different way. This could be due to factors that happened during an event or merely just the way authorities ask them to tell the story of what they saw. 

  An example of the ladder happens in this study. Two groups of people were asked to watch a video of a car accident. After they watched the video, one group was asked to recall what they saw when the cars ‘hit’ each other, and the other group was asked what they saw when the cars ‘smashed’ into each other. These words made a difference. Most of the people who heard the word ‘smash’ recalled a more violent crash. A week after this study was conducted, the participants were asked if they had seen any broken glass. Those who heard ‘smash’ were twice as likely to have recalled broken glass in this accident. 

The reasons for errors in recalling memories can be from a variety of things, something as simple as just having a rough day and being tired. Maybe we are just making guesses that fill in the gaps in our memories. 

Sources:

Remembering and Forgetting: Crash Course Psychology #14

How reliable is your memory? | Elizabeth Loftus - TED Talk

False Panthers 🐈‍⬛🐱

By Ray Fordyce 

While our newspaper has articles on the current events around the school we also like to do non-school related articles! Some of my favorite articles to write are the “Fun Facts” articles and for my very first one we will be doing panthers!

Now this first fact is commonly known but black panthers aren’t panthers, they are instead leopards or jaguars with a genetic mutation. Panthers are also commonly referred to as ‘The ghost of the forests’ due to their dark fur hiding them in the nighttime. Another fun fact that is more like a sad fact is how a group of panthers moved to an isolated population due to humans ruining their original habitat. This led to a lot of inbreeding and is now used constantly in biology and zoology lessons. You may even remember learning about this group of panthers. Now we will end this off with the opposite of the first fact. While black panthers are affected by melanism there is an even weirder phenomenon with albinism. This creates what we know as the ‘White Panther’.

Homecoming Preview 💃🕺

By Olivia Ridgely 

With the new school year on the rise, homecoming is approaching quickly. Kicking off Homecoming weekend is the fall pep rally. The pep rally will be held in the football stadium. It’s exciting to see what the SGA has in store for the upcoming pep rally. The pep rally will celebrate North County’s fall sports, the dance company will perform, the homecoming royals will be announced, and much more. The pep rally will be held during school hours on November 1st.

November 1st is also the homecoming football game! The homecoming game is at 6 PM against South River High School. Since it is the last game of the varsity season, it’s also senior night! Make sure to come and celebrate and cheer on your fellow knights! For this game, the student section’s theme is Blackout, so make sure to wear all-black attire. 

After the pep rally and the homecoming game, the Homecoming Dance will be held on November 2nd. This year the dance's theme is “Tangled in Our Memories.” More information about the dance has yet to be released. Stay tuned for more information about the homecoming dance and coverage of homecoming events!

NCHS Drama Club Fall Progam 🎭

By Max Gregg

This year the Drama Club’s fall season has a new face, with Ms. Ferguson and Ms. Dobry stepping back to allow student-led productions to take center stage. In the wake of 2024’s spring production of The Addams Family and in anticipation of this spring’s production of Spamalot, Ferguson has opened the door for more student interactivity. When I spoke to her, she explained that she was planning to do a one-night student showcase with one-act plays, scenes, and monologues. I managed to attend the pitch meeting on Sep. 18th, where a variety of old and new faces are eager to put themselves out there and make their mark on the NCHS Drama Club stage.`

4 projects have been accepted, ranging from original shows to reimagined classics. First is “Every Goth, Every Scare, All at Once”, written and directed by Madeline Tyson and Mizuki Smith. I spoke to Madeline about the show, and she told me it’s a “funny, quick-witted and gothic pet project,” that they’ve been working on since April. The second is “The Dragon’s Verdict” by Prince Stanislaus and Nelson Martinez-Ramas. Prince is planning to puppeteer the titular dragon and sounded excited when I spoke to him. Third is the reimagining of the classic Broadway hit “World Burn” from the Mean Girls musical, led by Isabella Hume and Aubrei Stanislaus. They both remarked when pitching their piece, that it was their senior year and thus was the last chance to get to perform Mean Girls on the NCHS stage. 

Finally, is “The B Team”, by your very own theater correspondent Max Gregg. I’ve been working on this show since last spring. I was even working on it on my prom night, as my date can attest. A one-act heist comedy, its title parodies the iconic 80’s TV show “The A Team”, promising that while they might not be the best, they are the next best option. 

Auditions for each show are being held in the Auditorium after school on Thursday, Sept. 26. If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to come on down and take a look. Drama Club welcomes everyone at any skill level. If not, then check the shows out on November 8th and 9th 2024.

Clubs!!🤺🪂

By Elliot Jester 

Clubs are switching up a bit this year with the new flex schedule. Some clubs lost their sponsors and are looking for new ones but let's go over what we know so far. Every 1st Wednesday of the month the following clubs meet: LGBTQIA+ Club run by Dobry in H210, Math Honors Society(Mu Alpha Theta) run by Santory in H212, The Recycling Club run by Barbee in B104, and Stem Ambassadors run by Alson and Voss in S107. Next, every 2nd Wednesday we have African Student Association run by Buabeng in T111, German Honors Society/German Club run by Griffin in F217, Lit Mag run by Cameron in B105, and the Maryland Math League and Math Team run by Renn in H214. Then, on the 3rd Wednesday we have the Athletic Leadership Council run by Aleardi in the PE Planning Room, Black Student Union run by Patterson in T105, The Nobility Acapella Group run by Price in M101, and National Art Honors Society run by Bowers in F221. Later, on the 4th Wednesday we have 3D Printing with Converso in S107, Book Club with Lowrie in the Media Center, Computer Science/Cyber Club with Carballo in E107, National French Honors Society with Taylor in F213, and UNICEF run by Vavaroutsos and Patti in C202. 

Now, on the First Thursday of every month we have Astronomy run by Hymowitz in H202, E-Sports Club run by Velasquez in H206, Lacrosse run by Albanese in Portable B7, Muslim Student Association with Sharafeldin in S103, and Spanish Honors Society run by De Leon in A206. Next, on the second Thursday we have Drama Club run by Ferguson in H108, Environmental Club run by Minnis in K204, Lacrosse with Nagle in D108, and Rho Kappa(Social Studies Honor Society) run By Kunkle and Sullenger in Portable A4. Then, on the third Thursday, we have Lacrosse with SUllivan in Portable B10, National Honors Society with Wojcicki-Smith and Fowler in the Cafeteria, our very own Knightline Newspaper run by Nathan in Portable B8 and the Millionaires Club run by Griffin in F217. On the Fourth Thursday, we have The Key Club run by Heymann in S101, Mock Trial run by Vengroski in Portable A6, and Science National Honors Society run by Williams and Gates in K109.

We also have best buddies running on the first and third Friday of every month, if you're interested talk to Chisolm and Pompey in T125 for more information. After school we have Jr. Dance Company run by Davis in the Dance Studio, Nuclear Science Club with Turkett in S201, Robotics Club with Cannon in T113, and Tri-M(Music Honor Society) run by Price in M101. If any of the after-school clubs sound like a fit for you make sure you contact the leader of the club to see what days they plan on meeting.