RealSchool Update: Food Day and our Consolidated Tech Team

Amitai created this awesome logo for Super Food Day!

Talia and Marni encouraged Frisch students to eat superfoods

Tsipora and Arianna got stickers saying "I Ate a Superfood" . . . 

. . . as did Solomon, shown here with his Superfood, oats!

Food Day is one of Health and Environment's favorite days. This year the H and E team focused on Superfoods, working with the Frisch cafeteria chef Kim Anderson to create a menu that included as many Superfoods as possible. Kim even made special blueberry smoothies for the day, since blueberries are a Superfood (did you know they help maintain good vision?). The H and E team, along with Mrs. Wiener's English class, prepared flyers with nutritional facts about the Superfoods, and we even translated the Superfoods into multiple languages, including Hebrew, Spanish, French, Russian, and Ukranian (thanks to Michelle G. for the last two and for Morah Dafna, an awesome Hebrew teacher at Frisch, for teaching the Superfoods in Hebrew!).

Morah Dafna (right) gets in the Food Day spirit
by teaching the Superfoods in Hebrew!

Rabbi Ciner loved the logo for Superfood Day so much -- thanks to Amitai for the amazing Super Cougar, who's based on the Green Lantern -- that he asked us to make a poster with it, so the Health and Environment team is now working on a permanent poster for the Frisch cafeteria, listing the nutritional benefits of Superfoods and including Amitai's Super Cougar.

OK, the froyo isn't soo healthy, but check out the salad: it's got spinach AND broccoli!

The Tech Team

This year, we merged all our tech teams -- App Making, Graphic Design, Video Production, and Web Design -- into one. Not everyone interested in the different technologies is working on everything, but streamlining has made these RS teams more efficient and productive. This past Monday, the Tech team met and accomplished the following:

1) The Graphic Design group is finishing up the logos so we can update our website with student-made logos. We're excited that Ari's brother Oren has now taken off where his brother left off with RealSchool's website design and maintenance!

Here's a sneak peek at one of our newly-designed logos, by Jamie Lebovics, who's been making logos for RS since it began:

A graphical representation of the Fibonacci sequence will be our Arts team logo.
The Arts team created an exhibit on the Fibonacci sequence
 for RealSchool's first Yom Iyun in March 2012.

2) An article about an app the App Making team created will be published this Friday in The Jewish Link. We'll be posting that as soon as it appears!

3) Simmy is spearheading the making of a music video for those interested in video production. The song the Tech team chose to work with is "Gold on the Ceiling" by The Black Keys.

4) Amitai is learning HTML, so stay tuned for our plans for Coding Hour this December!

Update from RS Meeting

RealSchool members had a lot to do as we gathered for the first time since Chanukah:

Religious Identity and Video Production

The Religious Identity and Video Production teams met to discuss the content of the 2-3-minute video they plan to film about how to make prayer more meaningful for students. As RS members brainstormed ideas for the video, Marni came up with a great tagline for the Religious Identity team in general: 

Turning Practice Into Purpose

We love it, Marni! Thanks!

Religious Identity is also gearing up for its next discussion on prayer, which will be on December 26 and will cover Tefillah in Talmud. Since we began the discussion series with a look at how prayer appears in Tanakh, we thought one next logical step would be seeing how prayer is addressed in the Talmud. Frisch has agreed to allow RealSchool to host a minyan on the days that we run a discussion group, so we'll do so that morning. Penina came up with a headline for the flyer we'll post to advertise the minyan:

Be the minyan you want to see in the world.

Great stuff, Penina. Thanks go out to you, too!

Karen, who heads Graphic Design, is going to make us a logo for with the line, so we'll be able to use the logo every time we run the minyan.

Last week many of RealSchool's Religious Identity members led discussions with the freshmen about where to draw the line between Judaism and the secular world. The discussion was part of an integration program at Frisch called Greek Week. For more information about Greek Week, see Greek Week at Frisch: Cougars Draw the Line. The Religious Identity team liked the way the discussion went and wants to have more of them with the freshmen. Therefore, what came out of tonight's meeting is a three-pronged approach to creating more mindfulness in student religious practice:

1) Videos, made for and by students, about the search for religious meaning
2) Additional discussions about prayer and a RealSchool minyan on the day of the discussions
3) Continued informal discussions with the freshmen, led by RealSchool: Religious Identity members

Graphic Design and Health and Environment

Religious Identity and Video Production weren't the only teams that got things done tonight. Graphic Design also laid out an action plan for the next few weeks, so we can realize our goal of having student-made logos for each of our RS teams. Health and Environment team continued work on the green cookbook we plan to make, although we're rethinking whether we want a formal cookbook or an app/website that we update, so we have a virtual recipe folder. Health and Environment team members also decided they want to focus on giving healthy makeovers to unhealthy recipes. Whatever else we decide on, one thing is clear: a recipe for kale chips is a must!

Soon you'll be able to make these kale chips yourself,
thanks to RealSchool's Health and Environment team and
Frisch's Environmental Club

Thanks to everyone who attended tonight. We got a lot done and also managed to get in some ad hoc discussions of one of our favorite topics at RS: education reform.

Finance and Fashion

Next on the to-do list:

Finance Team events
The Frisch Fashion Show, which we'll plan this year with the school's dance team