Panther Express

Volume 3-Issue 1

October 2013

Prairie Star Middle School 14201 Mission Road, Leawood Kansas 66224-9718

Panther Express Staff Ellen Nangia Co-Editor

Kendrick Kramer Co-Editor

Arwa Ali

Cade Stout

Nanma Pillai

Keenan Fitzmorris

Amit Israeli

Kareem Khan

Lisa Nocita, Faculty Sponsor

Submit ar cles in Microso Publisher

format via email to ltnoci-

ta@bluevalleyk12.org

Ar cles can be about anything you are

interested in! Restaurant reviews, book

reviews, music reviews, apps, video

games, short stories, poems, original

artwork, and photos!

Panther Express Staff meets on Mon-

days a er school in the library! We’d

love to have you join us!

Number Song Artist

1 Royals by Lorde

2 Roar by Katy Perry

3 Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus

4 Wake Me Up by Avicii

5 Hold On, We’re going home by Drake

6 The Fox by Ylvis

7 Holy Grail by Jay-Z

8 Blurred Lines Robin byThicke

9 Applause by Lady Gaga

10 Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey

By Ellen Nangia

Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?

He didn’t have the guts!

What monster flies his kite in a rain storm?

Benjamin Franklinstein!

What do you call a fat Jack‐O‐Lantern?

Plumpkin!

Why wasn't there any food le a er the monster party?

Because everyone was a goblin!

Why didn't Dracula have any friends?

He was a pain in the neck!

What is Dracula's favorite fruit?

A nectarine.

By Ellen Nangia

Here's a scary story: A babysi er taking care of two small children

called their parents late in the evening to ask for permission to cover

up the life‐size clown statue in the corner of the family room. "It's not

that I don't like it," she said. "It just kind of freaks me out with no‐

body else here. It's hard to watch TV." The parents' reac on to her re‐

quest freaked her out even more. "WHAT clown statue???" they

asked, fran cally. "Dial 911! Call the police!! DO IT NOW!!!"

A very well‐dressed man walked over to her car and started talking to

her. He explained that his rental car had died, and he needed a ride to

East Hampton for an appointment. She said she would be happy to

give him a ride. He put his briefcase in the backseat and said he was

going to the men's room quickly.

The woman looked at her watch and suddenly panicked. She drove

off quickly, forge ng that the man was coming back to the car for a

ride.

She thought nothing of him again un l she and her daughter pulled

into their driveway. She saw his briefcase and realized she had for‐

go en him! She opened it looking for some form of iden fica on so

she could no fy him about his belongings. Inside she found nothing

but a knife and a roll of duct tape!

By Ellen

Nangia

Must Reads

By: Nanma Pillai

The Trendy 12

The House of Hades

You can find these books and more at your PSMS.

Cookies

1

box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® spice cake mix

1

cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

1/2

cup butter, softened

1/4

cup milk

1

egg

1

teaspoon Betty Crocker® orange gel food color

Filling

1/4

cup butter or margarine, softened

4

oz (half of 8-oz package) cream cheese, softened

1 1/2

cups powdered sugar

1/2

teaspoon maple extract

1

tube (4.25 oz) Betty Crocker® black decorating ic-

ing

By Ellen Nangia

Mummies by Ellen Nangia

If you don’t like dead things‐‐stop reading here!

Mummies, one word, millions of discoveries. If you’re creepy and weird like me, you

will like this ar cle. I wanted to learn about mummies and how they’re made. I think it is in‐

teres ng how they take all the organs out and fill the tombs with their

valuables. I learned about Otzi the Iceman in Mrs.Byrd’s social studies

class and every day I wanted to come and just look at pictures and

learn about what happened to him a er they discovered him. He is

over five thousand years old and he s ll has a tongue and eye balls, let

me say it again, OVER FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OLD! It just amazed me.

Iceman is one type of mummy. He is an ice mummy. If you want to

learn more about him and other ice mummies you should get the book

Ice Mummies.

I got a book from the P.S.M.S library called “Mummies and Their

Mysteries.” It tells you all about how they make them and, as this ar ‐

cle is about mummies, I want to tell you.

The first step to mummifica on is to take out all the organs. They use a long metal

rod to take out the brain ssue through the nose. They leave the heart inside because they

wanted to be smart in the a erlife and they thought smarts came from the heart not the

brain. They took the rest of the organs like liver and lung by cu ng holes in the person’s side.

The second step to mummifica on is drying out the body. They used salt to do it just like if

we drank salt water it would dry our mouthes.it takes forty days to dry out the body. Next

they cover the body with resin to harden it and keep it safe. Then they wrap

the body with about one hundred fi y yards of linen. Finally the mummy is

put in series of coffins and put into their tombs.

15 TAG members attended the 20th Annual Heartland

Literature Festival on October 15th at the University of

Kansas. Students attended presentations by two young

adult authors, Sharon Draper and Mike Mullin. Stu-

dents then rotated through sessions including small

group discussions of either Out of My Mind by Draper

or Ashfall by Mullin, book signing, and the nominations

for the 2013 Heartland Committee to Promote Lifelong

Reading. Despite a very late bus, the weather was beau-

tiful and the sessions were action packed. Mike Mullin

demonstrated a volcanic eruption and tae kwon do

forms and breaks. When asked about how her charac-

ters might get along after the book ends, Draper re-

sponded, “People! These are not real folks! They are

paper people. When the book ends, so do they. I don’t

think about them. When people ask me why characters

do the things I do, I tell them, ‘Because I am the author

and they do what I want them to do.’” Mullin offered

writing tips to aspiring novelists. 1) Read everything

you can. 2) Write every day. And 3) Marry someone

with good health insurance. It was a great day to be a

2013

Heartland Literature Festival

By Ellen Nangia

Every day 20 banks are robbed. The average take is $2,500!

The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zea-land likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete!

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a cal-orie!

Slugs have 4 noses!

Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cant find any food!

Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool!

By Ellen Nangia

From Your Editors:

Panther Express Literary Magazine

The months of August, September, and October have been even ul months indeed. From a new member of the United

Kingdom’s Royal Family, to a shutdown of the United States Government (see next issue), these few months have the ability to

change the course of history.

H.R.H. George Alexander Louis was born to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. He will succeed his father, Prince Wil-

liam, to the throne of the Bri sh Empire a er his Grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II., and Prince Charles.

The Government Shutdown took place a er Congress could not agree over Obama-Care and other items. Due to this the

United States Government was shut down. This is not only limited to congress and other elected offices, but zoos, na onal parks,

and museums. The government opened once again due to the pressure of the upcoming pressure Federal Government Borrow-

ing Limit, which has now been eliminated. Whilst the Government Shutdown was in effect, health insurance was eliminated for

millions of Americans. When millions of Americans went to sign up for new health insurance, a glitch in the system caused the

website to crash. Hundreds of thousands of government employees were not working or paid during the shutdown. Now, many

large companies and corpora ons, as well as the government, are facing furloughs, or layoffs, due to the shutdown. The United

States Debt increased by three trillion United States Dollars (U.S.D.) during the shutdown.

Informing you about what you need to know,

Your Editors,

Kendrick A. Kramer & Ellen Nangia

Editors-In-Chief

Images from h p://www.salon.com/2013/07/24/royal_babys_name_announced/

h p://rt.com/op-edge/shutdown-us-financial-climax-212/

How to stay current on US and Interna onal news

Time for Kids h p://www. meforkids.com/news

CNN Student News h p://www.cnn.com/studentnews/

Scholas c News Online h p://teacher.scholas c.com/ac vi es/scholas cnews/index.html

NY Times Learning Network h p://learning.blogs.ny mes.com/

Newseum h p://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/

Na onal Geographic News h p://news.na onalgeographic.com/news/

CBBC Newsround h p://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/

Word Count 668

“The Question of Global Warming”

-Kendrick A. Kramer-

Global Warming is a hot

topic, literally. But who

should you believe? There

are two main theories

about why global warming

is happening. There is a lot

of controversy about these

two theories. We all know

that global warming is

happening, perhaps in the

next century, we will find

out the cause.

The first theory is

that humans are causing

global warming. Our cars,

which burn fossil fuels,

produce carbon dioxide.

That is the cause for the

theory of the „Greenhouse

Effect‟. The greenhouse

effect is a theory that states

that there is a blanket of

carbon dioxide that covers

the earth. Whenever the

heat tries to leave our

planet at night, it is trapped

inside the blanket; this

makes some conclude that

because of the CO2

blanket, we have warmer

temperatures.

The second theory

is that humans have

nothing to do with global

warming. Some believe

that earth has periods of

heat, and periods of cold.

The periods of cold are

called „Ice Ages.‟ The

periods between the ice

ages are the time when

Earth‟s average

temperature is warmer.

These theorists argue that

in these periods global

warming happens. Since

we have had several ice

ages and several periods of

global warming and ice

melts between the two

periods.

Some scientists

believe that global

warming will have hard

effects on Earth. The

largest effect, they believe

is climate change. They

believe that climate will

cause the following:

melting ice, extinction,

rising sea levels, and

animal migration. More

consequences are:

1James Balog

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/08

/164236520/chasing-ice-and-

capturing-climate-change-on-

film

hurricanes and other

storms will be stronger,

species will be out of sync,

floods and droughts will be

more common, there will

be less rain in dry areas;

less fresh water, diseases

like malaria will spread,

and eco systems will

change.

2http://enpundit.com/chasing-

ice-captures-the-earths-

vanishing-glaciers/

James Balog originally

studied to be a scientist but

instead decided to become

a photographer. Balog has

been a photographer for

three decades. He founded

the Extreme Ice Survey

(E.I.S.). The E.I.S. is a

long-term photography

experiment that combines

art and science; the

photographs taken give a

„Visual Voice‟ to the

Earth‟s changing eco

system. The Extreme Ice

Survey is an extensive

picture portfolio of melting

Word Count 668

glaciers. E.I.S. exists

because seeing is

believing. The E.I. S.

project uses 25 cameras in

Alaska, Greenland,

Iceland, and Montana. It

took six months of

experimenting to create a

camera system.

The cameras take

pictures of receding

glaciers every thirty

minutes, year-round,

during day light hours. The

cameras used in the project

are Nikon D200 digital

single lens reflex cameras.

The cameras are powered

by a custom made

combination of batteries

and solar panels. The

cameras are protected from

dust and waterproof cases

are mounted on tripod

heads. They are mounted

by a system of anchors and

3http://www.sundance.org/fil

mforward/film/chasing-ice/

guy wires. Each camera

system weighs over 100

pounds.

Balog put his hundreds of

thousands of images into

time lapse form for each of

the glaciers he observed.

He gave presentations

nationally and

internationally showing his

pictures. According to

www.extremeicesurvey.or

g, plans are in store for

more cameras in the Andes

Mountains, Antarctica, and

the Himalayan Mountains.

You can find out more

information about his

project and the resulting

cinematic film by going to

Chasing Ice. The results of

the E.I.S. project are

astonishing.

4http://enpundit.com/chasing-

ice-captures-the-earths-

vanishing-glaciers/

A certain glacier receded

2.5 miles in three years.

James Balog feels it is his

moral responsibility to

share his discoveries with

the world. You can learn

more about Balog‟s

background and awards by

visiting James Balog

Photography.

It is my personal opinion

that humans have nothing

significant to do with

global warming. After all,

the earth has undergone

many significant climatic

changes before. We

survived then. We will

survive now.

Inspira onal Quotes

By: Sivaanii Arunachalam

Don’t judge me, I was born to be

awesome not perfect.

You’re worth more than gold.

Fear is nothing but fear itself.

You’re a limited edi on.

You’re one of a kind.

Date Day Opponent Activity Home/Away Time Out of Class Leave/Return

A Home

B Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

A BYE

B Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

A Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

B BYE

A Home

B BYE

A BYE

B Home

A BYE

B Home

A Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

B Home

Aubry Bend A Home

Pleasant Ridge B Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

A Home

B Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

A Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

B BYE

A Away 2:15 2:25/5:30

B Home

A1 Jeff Wataha

A2 Jennifer Bartsch

B Charlie Stoltenberg

PSMS Coaching Staff

Prairie Star Middle School

Girls Basketball Schedule2013-2014

Oxford

Leawood

*Nov. 18 Monday

Oct. 30

Lakewood

Pleasant Ridge

Pleasant Ridge

Wednesday

Monday

Thursday

Monday

Tuesday

Lakewood

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

3:15

Overland Trail

Pleasant Ridge

Blue Valley

Harmony

Nov. 14

*A2 Team plays first

Make up games if needed: Dec 3 and Dec 5

Nov. 4

Nov. 7

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

*Nov. 20

*Nov. 21

*Nov. 25

Wednesday

Thursday

Wednesday

Thursday

Monday