Friday, January 15th, 2021—Who else is pumped for this next challenge at Utica Academy of Science high school? In two-weeks, the students will be participating in a Target Heart Rate Challenge for their physical education class. Atoms will be tasked with creating a maximum heart rate goal they would like to achieve. Below is additional information regarding maximum heart rate, target heart rate and goal suggestions for the challenge.

What is maximum heart rate? When people are exercising or participating in any physical activity, the goal is to get your Heart Rate as close to your Maximum Heart Rate as possible, otherwise known as your Target Heart Rate. Below are some Maximum Heart Rate Goals to achieve when you are exercising. These are determined based on your exercising habits and physical activity.

Maximum Heart Rate Goals

• Just Starting Exercising: Your goal should be to try and get to 50-60% of your Maximum Heart Rate
• Daily Exercising: Your goal should be to try and get to 65-75% of your Maximum Heart Rate
• Great Shape: Your goal should be to try and get to 80-85% of your Maximum Heart Rate

For this challenge, students will set their Maximum Heart Rate goals. No matter the goal in mind, being physically active and exercising is important to your heart, mind and body.

Click here to watch a quick video from high school teacher, Mr. Wagner who will introduce the Target Heart Rate Challenge. Good luck, Atoms with your upcoming Target Heart Rate Challenge!

Friday, January 15th, 2021—Utica Academy of Science Elementary School students said ‘challenge accepted’ when tasked with completing Minute-To-Win-It activities using everyday household items. This past week, students participated in the ‘Underhand Toss Basket’ challenge, in which the goal was to make the basket at each of the five markers in one minute or less. Click here to watch the video of one of our two students who were able to successfully complete the challenge. Please stay tuned for more Weekly Challenge videos and updates.

Friday, January 15th, 2021—Utica Academy of Science Atoms in Miss Cavo’s class participated in a directive drawing exercise where they drew the character, ‘Creeper’ from the hit game Minecraft. Check out these awesome drawings! Looks like we may have a few artists and or gamers in the midst. Keep up the great work, Atoms!

Thursday, January 14th, 2021—Utica Academy of Science high school students were recently studying the Abolition Movement in United States History. As part of a class project the students participated in the New York Time’s 1619 Project. For the project, Atoms read articles and created quote galleries that depicted the theme, mood and message of their chosen article. Please head to our Facebook page to view more images of the Atoms work for their class project.

Thursday, December 31st, 2020—Prior to kicking off the Utica Academy of Science National Honor Society’s first-ever Snowman Building Contest, we asked the Atoms one important question, “Do you want to build a snowman?” As it turns out, from an overwhelming amount of entries over the Winter Recess, the answer was in fact, yes they do want to build a snowman! Thank you to all who participated in this competition. We had many amazing entries that were festive, creative and unique. These snowmen certainly helped spread joy throughout the greater Utica community. Please see the results below from the Snowman Building Contest. Visit our Facebook page to view the pictures of the winners of this year’s competition.

Snowman Building Contest Results

• 1^st Place: Amar Halimanovic
• 2^nd Place: Abrar Alharbi
• 3^rd Place: Dzana Borovic
• Honorable Mention: Muhamed Allyawah

Friday, December 18th, 2020—Utica Academy of Science high school gave a warm Atoms welcome to an Emeritus Engineer, Howard Hollander, who spoke with the students about his impressive engineering career and community involvement.

Without engineers, science is just philosophy, a quote in his presentation. Mr. Hollander spoke about what exactly it takes to become an engineer, the education required and various paths students would be able to explore with an engineering degree. When asked what was his proudest career moment, he responded with, "kids I've mentored. My legacy is hand selecting people for the Leadership Development program."

Mr. Hollander currently serves as a board member for The MOST. He is the President Emeritus of Technology Alliances of Central New York, and is a retired engineer from Lockheed Martin.

Thank you, Mr. Hollander for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come and speak with our Atoms and future engineers!

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020—Utica Academy of Science elementary school hosted its virtual December Coffee Talk earlier this month. Families Zoomed in and learned the importance of the STAR Assessment, its structure and how they can help best prepare their Atom to be successful for their upcoming test. If you were unable to attend, it's okay! Please stay tuned for our January Coffee Talk. This is a great opportunity for you to learn and discuss important topics, valuable resources, experiences and so much more to help deepen and grow the school community. We hope you can join us in January!

Friday, December 18th, 2020—Throughout the month of December, the Utica Academy of Science high school Atoms were busy strength training, working on their fitness and well possibly planking thanks to a friendly competition courtesy of Mr. Wagner. Students had an opportunity to participate in the Push Up Challenge, where the overall goal was to see how many push ups could you complete (or the duration of time planking) by the end of the month, and were you able to improve upon your personal record? We are happy to announce that the results are in! Click here to head to our Facebook page to view a quick video from Mr. Wagner, and to find out if he was able to improve upon his push up record of 20!

Tuesday, December 29th, 2020—More snow means more opportunities to build a snowman and enter it in the Utica Academy of Science high school’s Snowman Building Contest. If you haven’t submitted your entry just yet, you still have time! The contest ends on Thursday, December 31st. A winner will be selected on Tuesday, January 5th. Happy building, Atoms. Remember to stay safe, stay warm and have fun.

How to Participate

• Build a Snowman
• Take a picture of you with your Snowman
• Submit your entry to the Virtual Google Classroom by Thursday, December 31st for your chance to win a prize

Monday, December 14th, 2020—Only good vibes here for the Utica Academy of Science elementary school Spirit Week. The week before winter recess, Atoms had an opportunity to participate in a week-long festivity where they could dress in the theme for that day. It’s no surprise that the Atoms eagerly participated and were excited to share their ‘school spirit.’ Please head to our Facebook page to view our picture gallery of Spirit Week. Oh, and if you see any famous celebrity or characters, or even twins it’s okay! 

Spirit week Themes

• Monday: Mismatch Day
• Tuesday: Twin Day
• Wednesday: Wellness Day
• Thursday: Character Day
• Friday: Pajama Day