0
voLXX
stentorian
north Carolina school of science and mathematics
1219 broad street, durham nc 27705
april 2001
How “smart” are smart cards?
April Pridgen
How would you like to
check your email from Beall
lawn? Better yet, how would you
like to no longer code onto hall,
but use a smart card instead?
Technology is changing quickly
and NCSSM is striving to keep
pace with the times. As you will
see, NCSSM’s Technology Com
mittee is working to make the
school a better place for stu
dents and faculty.
As of now, NCSSM is
hoping to go wireless by next
year. For quite some time, the
school has been considering
wiring dorm rooms as an option.
However, universities such as
Duke, Carolina, and NC State,
have proven that it is more effi
cient and less costly to go wire
less rather than wiring older
buildings.
As far as using a computer
goes, students would have both
internet and intranet access on
school campus. Whenever stu
dents logged on to their comput
ers, they would still have the
proxy server through the school
and be able to store things on
their M drive. The school’s
software would also be the
same as it is
now. Basically,
the only
change is that
students
would be able
to have
internet ac
cess anywhere
on campus. By
purchasing
special anten
nas to go onto
their comput
ers, students
with desktops
might even be
able to get
dorm room
internet service.
Another idea the commit
tee has is to issue smart cards
to students at the beginning of
their junior year. These would
most likely have a student’s
photo on the front and be used
to replace picture ID’s. Inord^r
to use the card, one would not
have to swipe it like a credit card,
but only have to come within a
certain distance of a special sen
sor, which could even read the
card from inside students’ pock
ets. Because of computer chips
located inside the card, students
would be able to use them to
check out library books, do
laundry, code onto hall, and af
firm their attendance at required
assemblies. Another possible
use of smart cards is as a secu
rity device for
your laptop.
Computers
may be pro
grammed so
that they work
only with your
smart card in
serted into a
slot in the com
puter. Some
university cam-
I puses do this
y already for se-
|- curity pur-
Eposes.
I However, the
^ school would
not have the fi
nances to use smart cards as
dorm room keys.
For students who are in
terested, the committee is plan
ning to form a committee with
student members to discuss the
possibilities of ways in which
smart card might be programmed.
The Technology Com
mittee is hopeful that in the next
five years NCSSM can become
an even more technologically ad
vanced place. Although these
are only ideas right now, the
committee hopes to upgrade the
phone system, create high tech
nology labs for each of the three
science floors, put more video
clips on the web for students,
upgrade the language labs, and
create an animation studio for
students. These changes how
ever, will probably take place over
a span of about five years and
will have a greater impact on fu
ture NCSSM students.
When speaking of the
plans for the future, the technol
ogy committee is hopeful these
changes will take place within the
next few years, but cannot guar
antee when its goals will be
reached.
“None of this has been de
cided. It’s just wishful thinking
at this time,” says Dr. Halpin.
Ethics at NCSSM
NCSSM’s Olympians
1 HERESA ANASTI
For four years, NCSSM
has hosted the annual Ethics and
Leadership Conference for
middle school and high school
students across North Carolina.
The conference was created to
help train adolescents to analyze
and discuss issues involving
controversial ethical issues, and
help them develop into leaders,
similar to the Ethics and Leader
ship course offered at NCSSM.
At the conference, which was
held on March 6, students had
the chance to be involved in
small group discussions such as
“Nerds, Geeks, Bullies and
Cliques,” “Sugar Pills; The Eth
ics of HIV Clinical Research in
the Developing World,” “Why
Should I be Moral?” and
“Biotech Foods: What’s the
Beef?”
’’The most important
part of this conference is that
students who attend have the
opportunity to have small group
discussions in which they are
challenged to say what they be
lieve about these issues, with
out being judged for their
beliefs,” said Dr. Warshaw.
This year, 919 people
were registered for the confer
ence, up from 160 the first year.
The demographics of the
conference’s audience has also
changed: this year’s conference
was attended by several middle
schools in addition to high
schools. To accommodate all
the people. Dr. Warshaw and
Mr. Clayton added a panel dis
cussion. The panel discussion
consisted of half the students,
while the other half went on to
the small group discussions.
This year, the topic of the panel
discussion was the death pen
alty, and the speakers were
Michael Graham, a previous
death row inmate; Lucas
Schaefer, a Duke student who
interviewed the family of a
death row inmate; Dr. Kiss, the
director of the Heenan Ethical
Institute at Duke; and four at
torneys, two representing death
row inmates, and two prosecut
ing death row inmates.
The response to the
conference has been excellent.
Many teachers, parents, and
students have written the
school back, thanking Dr.
Warshaw and Mr. Clayton for
the opportunity, and saying
they will be back next year.
Since the registration has al
most doubled each year, one
can assume that the
conference’s reputation will
continue to grow.
“Some people keep
bringing students back each
year, which shows us that it is a
valuable experience for these
students,” said Dr. Warshaw.
Michael Mueller'and Igor
Gorodezky
This spiing, watch out
for a select group of Olympi
ans around campus. Only, well,
none of them have actually
gone to Sydney to get medals
in the Summer Olympics, nor
did these
students
train count
less hours
in athletic
facilities to
go for the
gold. These
students
have com
peted in
Science
Olympiad.
Founded in
the 1980s,
Science
Olympiad
has blos
somed into NCSSM s olympiad
one of the premier academic
competitions in the country. It
is divided into several events,
such as “Disease Detectives”
and “Chemistry Lab,” that test
students’ abilities in different
fields of science. Some events,
such as “Bottle Rocket” and
“Wright Stuff,” test students’
abilities to apply science to
make different sorts of con
structions.
Science Olympiad has,
^ since its inception, become a
yearly ritual for high schools
around the nation. For many
schools Science Olympiad teams
acquire a prestige and history to
defend. These schools typically
have a higher budget for the team
and are sometimes fully managed
team finished sixth overall in the state
by faculty members who make
sure the team is practicing and
improving in their events. The
top performing high schools
have always been extremely com
petitive, since this is one of the
few chances schools face off in
non-athletic competition.
NCSSM has had particular suc
cess in Science Olympiad, hav
ing won several consecutive
state championships in earlier
years. In fact, NCSSM’s perfor
mance in Science Olympiad has
been so good that NCSSM is the
only school in North Carolina
that is allowed to bypass the re
gional competition and receive an
automatic berth into the state
competition. NCSSM, however,
has recently not performed very
well in competi
tions, and has ac
tually not won a
state champion
ship since 1996. In
fact, in the past
years the Science
and Math team has
done so poorly
that it would not
move on to the
state competition
„ were it not for the
go
0 automatic berth
5 that is reserved for
the school. None-
1 theless, this year’s
I teams performed
competition especially well in
the regional competition, in
events such as Water Quality
and Qualitative Analysis, where
our teams captured first and sec
ond places. Other highlights in
clude Reach for the Stars (1" and
4'*') and Science of Fitness (1" and
3’“). In addition, NCSSM sur
prised many competitors by per
forming well in building events.
See “Olympians,” Page 2