![Raising his arm for a high five, freshman Abram Brazier plays with Early Childhood Center students during his first visit of the semester. Brazier joined his assigned class during their designated outdoor time. “[Child Development] gives me experience with how to talk [to] kids. We read them a book so knowing how to talk to them [was helpful]. Most of the [preschoolers] just came right up to us [and] played around,” Brazier said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/gallery2-1200x800.jpg)
![Within the U.S., the busiest shopping period of the year is Cyber Week, the time from Thanksgiving through Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, shoppers spent 3.3 billion on Cyber Monday, which is a 7.3% year-over-year increase from 2023. “When I was younger, I would always be out with my mom getting Christmas gifts or just shopping in general. Now, as she has gotten older, I've noticed [that almost] every day, I'll open the front door and there's three packages that my mom has ordered. Part of that is she just doesn't always have the time to go to a store for 30 minutes to an hour, but the other part is when she gets bored, she has easy access to [shopping],” junior Grace Garetson said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/DSC_0249.JPG-1200x801.jpg)
![French teacher Marieme Toure serves a plate of the Senegalese food she prepared for her AP French Language and Culture class, to senior Faiza Syed. “I never had Senegalese food before,” Syed said. “I thought it was so cool that she was able to bring a part of her culture [and] background to us.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/IMG_0798-1200x906.jpeg)
![NEW CHALLENGE, NEW TEAM MEMBERS: Every season, VEX creates a new game that robotics team members are faced with and have to build a robot to compete in. This year’s game forces students to create a robot that is able to stack rings onto mobile goals in order to score points. The change in games each season is something that robotics teacher Audrea Moyers appreciates.
“One of the things that I like about VEX is that they have a new problem to solve every year,” she said. ¨Even though the equipment’s the same, they have to analyze the game, and they have to come up with solutions that are unique that year. They are using their knowledge from prior years, but they have to kind of redesign a problem.”
As returning teams were faced a new game, some new teams and members had to adapt to a uncommon playing field and game.
“Three of our four teams were competing for the first time this year, and they had very different experiences match to match, so I think they learned a lot,¨ she said. ¨It’s hard just watching a video online to know how it’s actually going to be in person, so they all learned a lot about what gameplay is like, how to work with an alliance partner [and] how to adapt during the day to changes.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_9283-1-1200x800.jpg)
In this episode of the Room 22 podcast, co-host Jenny Marquez and guest co-host Tania Lopez interview sophomores Linus Bossardt, Jasmine Thompson and Isabella Tolosa about evacuating and keeping up with the news during the Los Angeles wildfires. Listen as they discuss the impacts of evacuations on their families and how they’ve stayed informed about the news.
This story was originally published on The Pearl Post on January 13, 2025.
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