Did you know that Islam is a religion that has over 2 BILLION followers in the entire world! It is the second largest religion in the world. 3.45 million of those Muslims live here in the United States. Just a few awesome facts:

• Muslims are the most ethnically diverse faith group in the United States.
• The largest population of Muslims is NOT in the Middle East but in Asia! Indonesia has the largest Muslim population.
• The first University in the world was founded by a Muslim woman named Fatma Al-Fihri in Morocco in 859 AD. It is called AL-Qarawiyyin University.
• The African Moors who were Muslim ruled Spain for almost 800 years. This is why to this day, there is an Arabic language influence in the Spanish language. There are approximately 4000 words in Spanish that are derived from Arabic.
• American Muslims are part of every facet of American life including entertainment, music, sports, and education. Leaders like Mohammad Ali and Malcolm X were incredibly important figures in the fight for civil liberties for Black Americans in the Civil Rights Movement.

How perfect that we celebrate the life of MLK just at the start of the new year -- it offers the opportunity to make resolutions about the steps we each can take to foster a more just world.

Please enjoy this special edition of our S'mores newsletter as we celebrate Dr. King's birthday at BHS.

In case you were wondering, our Environmental Club has been busy! Dr. Murphy and Ms. Kaur spent some time with their students creating labels and distributing recycling bins to classrooms. They also did a great job creating posters to encourage and inspire students to take recycling seriously. In addition, our students participated in a clean up of Van Saun Brook with the Hackensack Riverkeeper Organization. Great job everyone and thank you for helping to take care of our beautiful planet.

Ms. Atempa's 8th grade class read and analyzed Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Students thought about a global issue that they felt passionate about and used this topic to write and present their version of Dr. King's speech.

Mr. Fridman's students acted out Macbeth with props, using Shakespearean acting techniques.

Ms. Corso's 11th grade honors class had a fabulous time reading Shakespeare's Othello.

Ms. Reyes and her 9th graders just finished reading 'Of Mice and Men' and are currently working on their narrative essays. 10th graders read 'The Crucible' and are composing their literary analysis essays. 11th graders just completed 'A Raisin in the Sun' and have now moved on to 'The Alchemist', a great Brazilian folk tale on South American culture. Finally, her 12th graders are reading 'Fahrenheit 451' and discussing irony and dystopias in preparation to compare their analysis to the book '1984'.

Ms. Hrabovsky's Algebra honors class requested a day of Jeopardy to review their polynomial factoring knowledge.

Factoring is a useful technique for solving polynomial equations. By breaking a polynomial down into smaller factors, we can often simplify the equation and find the solutions more easily.

Our students are learning great things in Science:

• 8th grade science: Sound waves and vibrations.
• AP Biology: Cell structure and function, cellular respiration.
• Anatomy and Physiology: Histology and digestive system.
• Engineering: Free-hand house sketches, data table with conversions.
• Forensics: Tire track and fingerprint analysis.
• Honors Integrated Biology: Intro to genetics and Punnett Squares.
• AP Computer Science: Nested loops and algorithms for strings.
• Integrated Chemistry: Properties of metals, non metals and metalloid.
• Honors Chemistry: Groups and trends in the periodic table, valence electrons, and symbols of the elements.
• AP Psychology: Perception, classical and operant conditioning, observational learning.
• AP Environmental Science: Population growth, carrying capacity, logistic and exponential growth.
• Environmental Science: Endangered species, future of biodiversity.
• Forensic Science: Blood evidence and DNA evidence.
• Physics: Friction, Inclined plane, verifying Newton's Laws of Motion and calculating friction force.

Congratulations to students of the month for December:

• 8th grade-Sophie Puerta Canaveral
• 9th grade- Iran Lara
• 10th grade- Janaya Dos Santos
• 11th grade- Alfonso Tolentino and Aa'niyla Craig
• 12th grade- O'Lori O'Uhuru

Students in Ms. Kaur's STEM club were able to enjoy a presentation discussing the educational journey and prestigious careers in STEM. Students learned about interesting topics such as: consumer science, patents, novel science & publications, molecular mechanisms driving skin aging, the role of epigenetics & how it relates to child development, and clinical research.

In this edition of the S'mores we recognize our very own Mrs. Dianne Kelemen who graduated with the Class of 1981. She has been a special education teacher here at BHS since 1998. Mrs. Kelemen has a number of accomplishments that she has achieved since joining the Bogota school community including winning Teacher of the Year in 2017. Without a doubt, her biggest accomplishment is the numerous students that she has helped to reach their academic goals, and of course the enormous amount of love and support that she provides for her students each and every day. Thank you Mrs. Kelemen for your dedication to our students.