Submitted to the Billerica Minuteman
Submitted to the Billerica Minuteman
Billerica resident Annabelle Dionne was recently named a 2021 Creativity Award recipient from the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at Salem State University, and will travel to Berlin this summer to perform on stage.
Dionne is an alumna of the class of 2021 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music with minors in English and history. Her plans after graduation include advanced study in both musicology and ethnomusicology.
The Creativity Awards are presented annually by Salem State’s Center for Creative and Performing Arts to 10, outstanding students in the disciplines of art and design, creative writing, dance, music, and theatre.
Kimberly Manyanga
Something like a cultural shift has swept over the atmosphere at Billerica Memorial High School.
As we continue to navigate through this unconventional year, my peers and I have noticed many hopeful signs of increased awareness and support for mental health here at school.
Especially as we recently shifted from hybrid learning to full-time, in-person learning.
For one, the school has implicated a 40-minute period during the school day where students can either recharge and do independent work or leave class for pull-out support. This can include going down to guidance, or to one of the other support staff in the building and talking, or seeking help in any form.
Wicked Local
An invisible virus changed life for everyone at Billerica High School this year. A barely visible fly changed Ogechukwu Iwuchukwu s life for the better.
A proposal Iwuchukwu, 16 wrote, using common fruit flies to study genetics, earned her a first-place award at the Massachusetts Science & Engineering Fair (MSEF) for a project proposal in the behavioral sciences category.
Iwuchukwu s proposal: The Intergenerational Impact of Parent Stress Using Drosophila Melanogaster, common fruit flies.
Her project will explore how past trauma imprints on DNA - leaving an epigenetic scar. She will use fruit flies, a common scientific tool, because you can study multiple generations quickly because of the short life span.