Academic decathlon team returns from New York City

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Ground Zero - left to right front row, Luke Millar, Marissa Martin, Nicole Koczanowicz, Caitlin Blum, Brook Bullock, Alec Bohigian.  Back row: Jordan Fowler, Chad Bryson, Mike McCarty, Amy Johnson, Brad Lohuis, Anthony Naumcheff.

 

YHS Academic Decathlon Team recently returned from a trip to New York City to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to study first hand the 16 pieces of art they will be tested on this winter. This year the theme is the Romantic period and includes works of art by Gericault, Church, and Bierstadt. Last November the YHS team traveled to Chicago to study the art and made a sweep of the Gold medals in their Division III at the State Academic Decathlon Competition in March 2002.

In addition to studying the art the students toured Ground Zero where they hung up posters on the fence of St. Paul’s Chapel to memorialize 9/11 and visited the Smithsonian Indian Museum at Battery Park to prepare for the AD Social Studies test. The group with their coaches Betsy Blum and Deborah Brown also toured Central Park, the Empire State Building and went to a Broadway show.  Three YHS alumni who live in Manhattan joined the group for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square; Noel Nocciolo, Demian Vanderputten and David Jennings.

The team will be tested in seven different areas and are studying hard for the Madera County competition to be held February 1, 2003.  Yosemite High School has a 10-year tradition of winning at Madera County and placed third last year in Division III at the state competition in Modesto.